


The Tinhat!Verse Story of Cockles

by ghuune



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Anal Sex, Analingus, Angst, Blowjobs, Branding, Cockles, Domesticity, Fluff, Frotting, Heavy Drinking, Implied Past Abuse, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Oral Sex, Phone Sex, Pining, Rimming, Rome - Freeform, Skype Sex, UST, convention fic, eating disorder mention, not entirely fair to jared, self-injury, set fic, tinhat!verse, violence against misha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-23
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:23:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 53,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghuune/pseuds/ghuune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Tinhat!Verse started as a fictionalized account of the Cockles ship as interpreted from available gifs and meta. The thought experiment was, "If this is happening, what does it look like?" It has, however, evolved into something entirely other, the way things do.</p><p>In 2008, Misha Collins joined a whole new world: the set of Supernatural. Little does he know the Devil's deal responsible for the Show's success: fandom manipulation that began the moment the Show was conceptualized. As the relationships of Sam, Dean, and Castiel evolve, the stresses placed upon their actors heighten. Forced to confront the consequences of decisions made over a decade ago, all three men come to a new understanding of love and family loyalty.</p><p>(Currently in a state of rolling revision I'm calling the Jared Padapatchjob, as his was the character I found most opaque. Will update this summary once I feel I've achieved something resembling timeline coherence).</p><p>NOTE: this is written entirely out of order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Angeles

I. SEPTEMBER 9th, 2011.  
The song was stuck in his head. Jensen didn't know why, but when his silent Vancouver apartment gaped around him after a day on set, plucking it out on his guitar felt soothing.

Naw—“soothing” was the wrong word. The silent apartment gaped, and it showed teeth. The notes from his guitar were scraps he threw so it didn't snap shut on him. 

He frigged up the F# for the sixth time and took a break to swig the beer on the coffee table. His throat was sore from a day of growling out Dean. You'd think, Misha gone, he could lighten up the vocal register, gradually glide back to his old way of speaking, but at this point, the voice was part of Dean. 

Also, if he let the gravel go, it'd be like admitting Mish was never coming back.

The jaws of silence creaked, and he spilled a little of his beer in his haste to get his hands back on his guitar.

II.  
His fingers tapped on his thighs, drilling the chords into his muscle memory, as he reclined in his chair in the makeup trailer. Jared sat at the far end, his features bathed in the incandescence shed from the multiple 100 watt bulbs while Kori dabbed concealer under his eyes. 

“Whatcha humming?” Jared asked. 

Jensen twitched. “Didn't know I was,” he said. “What's it sound like?”

Jared, bless him, took that bait happily and started singing something about lime in the coconut, she drank it all up. “But seriously,” he said, after playing out the joke, “sounds familiar. Hum a little?” Seeing Jensen about to refuse, he said, “C'mon, it's going to drive me crazy if you don't. I know I've heard that song.”

Jensen didn't know the words, but he had the bridge down cold, because he was breaking his fingers trying to get it right. He sang it, easily managing the difficult minor key.

“Wait. Wait,” Jared said. He looked intense for a minute, then shook his head. “Shit. What's that from?”

Jensen shrugged. “I'm learning to play it. Kind of a bitch.”

“Play it sometime?”

“Sure,” Jensen said, smiling to reassure him, “if I ever get it right.” 

Jared texted him about a thousand times a day, little things like, “Check out Channel 5” or funny pictures he found online. Letting him know he was around, you know, if Jensen ever felt like talking about it.

Which Jensen did not.

III. AUGUST 3rd, 2011  
“Mish.” Jensen tried to pry the bottle of vodka from Misha's grip from his position on the sofa across from his recliner. “Stop.”

“Fuck no,” Misha said, yanking it back, “and fuck you.”

To say Mish was in a bad mood would be putting it lightly.

He upended the bottle and his throat worked as he swallowed vodka, neat.

It didn't smell, which was a good thing, because as it was, he wasn't gonna be in any shape to shoot his final episode with Supernatural tomorrow. It would be the height of unprofessionalism if he had an obvious hangover. At the same time, he no longer had to worry about consequences. Mix in a completely understandable depression, and you had a drunk man dead-set on getting drunker.

“What?” Misha demanded. Vodka sloshed as he lowered the bottle. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“You're scaring me, man.” Jensen made another attempt for the bottle, but Misha held it out of his reach. Jensen contemplated the odds of getting it without a wrestling match. Misha didn't have a world-class self-preservation instinct at the best of times, and tonight, drunk as he was, he'd resist until he made Jensen hurt him. The thought made him feel even more guilty and shitty and hollow and he just didn't need it, not on top of everything else. 

“You act like this is just happening to you,” he said. “I'm here, too. I'm involved.”

Misha glared. “You lose your safety fuck when Jared's not playing nice. Poor you. I'm losing my ability to support my family. Sorry if I think my shit's a little more serious.”

Jensen ignored the first sentence; it was a running joke on set that he was fucking Jared, and not like he hadn't tried, but Jared was straight. Good thing, too: sex would have ruined a rare friendship. He missed out on a lover, but he gained a brother, and that was a precious thing.

Sitting right in front of him was—not a consolation prize from God, because first of all, God and gay sex didn't rub elbows comfortably in Jensen's head, and second of all, Misha was not a consolation prize—but. There Jensen stopped, as he always did when he tried to define what Misha was to him. He shook it off, stowed his shit, as Dean would say—whatever the hell Misha was to him, he was gonna be a dead undefinable relationship if he didn't let up. 

“Give me that bottle,” he growled, with serious eye contact. That was usually enough to get Misha to do whatever he wanted, and he manipulated freely. This was an emergency.

“I said no.” Misha's hard, angry expression finally cracked into fear and loss so toxic Jensen shrank from it, warded it off with crossed arms.

Misha grinned bitterly and toasted him before he took another long suckle at the vodka bottle. He wasn't above doing suggestive things with his lips in the process, but Jensen was too grieved and horrified to respond. 

“You mean it,” Jensen said, his voice breaking. “This's how you're going to handle this?” He rocketed to his feet. “Then have at it, you child. Go ahead. Call's for 1330.”

“Fuck call,” Misha said. “Darren—” he meant his body double—“can film my scenes. No one will miss me.”

That made him flinch. Slow, his body unwilling to obey him, he turned back to see Misha drain the bottle. The bottle that'd been full when he entered less than an hour ago. _Jesus Christ_ —which wasn't a blasphemy as he thought it, but a prayer. _Watch over him._

“I'll miss you.”

“You'll miss getting sucked off,” Misha said, purposely crude. His eyes were still focused on him despite the alcohol. “It's Supernatural. My ghost might pop in for an ep. I'll drop by your trailer. Keep hope alive.”

Jensen crumpled: he knelt in front of the recliner and let his hand rest on Misha's shin. The ridge of warm bone pressed into his palm, his blood beat beneath the denim. Misha regarded him, a complicated expression on his face. 

“You think you're scared, Jen?” His voice was thick. “What if I lose my home?”

Jensen's mouth contorted as he damn near started crying himself. He dipped his head, even though Misha never cared if he cried, but first of all, this wasn't about him, as he'd pointed out. And second of all, _dammit._ Of course Misha would be freaking out about _that._

Misha had built his house from the ground up. He had an infant, West; all his pictures were of him in the grocery store, as though Mish were silently bragging _this_ child would never starve. And he'd earned that: he'd known hunger—not just “Oh, I forgot to eat today,” but real hunger, the kind that got you eating out of restaurant dumpsters. 

Jensen didn't have a son. He'd never gone hungry. He came from country clubs and dinner at eight while this man came from parked cars with clothing on the windows to block the sun. He would never really get where all this angry fear came from, and deep down, he was glad. So there was that. 

“Mish, you did a hell of a job for us. There'll be others. Everyone knows you're talented—”

“Bullshit,” Misha said. “The real world, Jensen, maybe try looking at it. People lose their jobs, their homes, all the time. What I've done here doesn't mean a thing to LA. Jen. _Jen._ The fuck am I gonna do?”

Jensen clawed his way up Misha's legs then, draped himself over his lap, clasped his head against his chest. Misha's teeth scraped and his hot, wet breath dampened his shirt as he silently screamed. Coiled deep in Jensen's stomach, cold there, was his own insignificance, his own shallowness. He craved comfort because he'd miss having this man beneath him, above him, around him, while Misha was terrified he'd fail his family. He was an asshole... but he knew that about himself already.

“You're gonna make it,” he said, pressing the words into Misha's scalp. Beneath the vague, potatoey scent of vodka was Misha's own smell, and he inhaled it sharply, wishing hard that this was not happening. He wished for something to blame, something towards which to direct his helpless anger, but found nothing. Sera Gamble, the writer turned showrunner, wanted to take the show back to the realms where the Impala could go. That meant every angel out of the pool. It wasn't his place to judge the decision; all he cared about was Misha, grieving, his tears wetting his shirt. 

Even more desperately, he wished he could tell Misha he loved him, because the man needed to hear it; but that wasn't something he could say unless he were one hundred percent certain, and he wasn't. 

“C'mon,” he said, roughly kissing Misha's scalp, “time for bed.”

The look Misha gave him froze him from throat to balls.

“Really?” he said. “That is so fucking low--”

Jensen ignored him as he pulled him up off the recliner, Misha's flexible body rendered boneless by booze. “It's not what you think, numbnuts,” he said. “Gotta keep you on your side. It won't be long before you start vomiting, and I'll be damned if you choke while I'm here.”

“Wouldn't be the first time.”

Jensen cracked his first smile of the evening as he looped Misha's arm over his neck and propped him up, dead weight warm on his hip and arm. 

He dumped him on the bed, put a mixing bowl—the best thing he could find—under his nose, and then stretched out behind him, playing big spoon. Not only was it the Emmy-award winning cuddle position of choice, but it was also the easiest way to keep Misha from rolling over to suffocate in his pillow. 

An entire bottle of vodka in under an hour. God knows how he'd even kept that down. 

“Be impressed if you can move tomorrow,” Jensen rumbled against his ear. Misha creeled and ground back against him, and God help him, he was excited by the tight curve of Misha's ass against his groin. He really was that low. He shook his head and kept his lips from the dangerous spots around Misha's ears, Misha's neck. He knew all of Misha's dangerous spots, and tomorrow would be the last time he'd see them. 

Misha was still awake, but lost inside his drunk, leaving Jensen alone with his own terrible sense of loss. 

IV. SEPTEMBER 22, 2011  
Jensen got better at the song—turned out its name was “Angeles”—once it finally occurred to him to YouTube the music video, which he found after a committed afternoon Googling the chordal progressions. The burnout staring at him through the screen sang in a voice as whispery as cobwebs. Jensen liked the rough, homemade look of the video, the “I'm too depressed to give a damn” quality of the singing, all backed by powerful, certain guitar playing, like the guy was saying, _yeah, I'm knocked down right now, but listen, I still got some steel. Watch me. I got this._

He got the sheet music and practiced.

One night, he surprised himself crooning, “I could make you satisfied in everything you do/All your secret wishes could right now be coming true...”

He flubbed the chord, recovered, kept singing. If he knew the words, he knew the words, and so what if his voice was weak? It wasn't like Smith belted it out either. 

“Spend forever with my poison arms round you/No one's gonna fool around with us...”

Jensen put a little diaphragmatic support into his singing. His playing suffered, but there was something compelling about this lyric. It felt right, like something he wanted to say. 

“So glad to meet you, Angeles.”

Then he winced, set aside the guitar, raked his hands through his hair. Why? Seriously. Why was he thinking about Misha? Again.

Misha wasn't answering his calls or his texts. He was talking to Danneel, which was awful, because Danneel only passed on the facts: Misha got back to California okay, Misha was confirmed for the next round of conventions, Misha says “hi”—but wild horses wouldn't drag Misha's confidences from her. How he was feeling. How he was doing. One of the things Jensen loved about his wife was how she kept her best friends' secrets, but, you know, there are best friends and then there's your husband. He should have slipped a “tell me everything” subclause into their vows, except it wouldn't have worked, and he knew it. Dani was gentle, she was supportive, and she was Switzerland. Not a single hint passed her lips of what Misha suffered.

If he even did suffer. Knowing Mish, he'd disappeared inside some project with not even a ripple. Misha would move on. But Dani wouldn't even say something as simple as, “He's doing okay.” What a hell of a position for her to be in, anyway. Misha was one of her best friends. He couldn't deprive her of that...

He couldn't spend all night like this.

Jensen snatched up his phone. 

“Can you come over?” 

“Sure,” Jared said, after a pause which Jensen knew was him eye-talking with Gen. “Got beer?”

“Get a job.”

Jared laughed. “Give me one,” he crooned in mock seduction. 

“Ask your wife.”

“Be there in fifteen,” Jared said, still laughing. 

Jared turned up with a case of beer and a duffel bag. A few DVDs were cradled in the slack between the bag's straps, as though Jared had thrown them on top on his way out the door, which he probably had.

“What is this, a slumber party?” Jensen asked.

“I mean for you—” Jared pointed at him, “—to get through all this,” and he raised the case of beer easily, big veins standing out on his arm. 

“You gonna take advantage of me?” Jensen stepped aside to let him in.

“I brought the Sharpies,” Jared said, moving into the kitchen. Beer bottles clanked as he put them in the fridge. “Put in one of the DVDs,” he called out. 

Jensen looked through the selection. A few bangs-and-bad-jokes action movies, a Clint Eastwood (not one of the better ones, but Jared wasn't exactly spoiled for choice), and Jared's own favorite movie, “Good Will Hunting.” Jensen hovered over Clint before he selected “Good Will.” Jared was here so he didn't spend the whole damned night ticking like a moth against the edges of his bell jar. He didn't care what he watched so long as he wasn't alone, and Jared was always down for a viewing of “Good Will.”

He settled back on the sofa as Jared reentered the living room, carrying four open beers between the long fingers of his big hands. He zigzagged his impossible frame across the couch, his feet in Jensen's space, leg warm against his.

Years ago, this closeness would have driven him nuts. Jared, smoking hot with his rangy body and enormous smile, had sent jolts of awareness up his spine to the point where he'd lost sleep over it. Thankfully, that'd turned out to be just a passing crush. Shortly after Jensen nursed him through his first breakdown, he'd seen him on set and thought “my brother,” and meant it, and the relief had been enormous. 

“Hey, I was hoping you'd pick that!” Jared passed him one of the open beers. “Bottoms up,” he said, “these are all for you.”

“You for real?”

“One of us has to drive to set tomorrow.”

“Dude, I have scenes.”

“You always have scenes. Relax! Dean's a drunk this season anyway. Somebody gives you shit about it? Tell 'em it's Method.”

Jensen shrugged and took a pull at the bottle as South Boston appeared on the screen.

The movie followed the underachieving, tortured genius Will, his best friend Chuckie a constant presence by his side. Will screwed around, getting into fights, met a few father figures, found the best of the bunch—a man wounded by his life worse than Will had been by his—and became his friend. Then Will met Skylar, charmed and dated her. Skylar was “the Girl.” No real reason she should become so important to Will, except she did. Will swaggered and played it off and ignored it, but she inspired him, made him vulnerable. He started to feel pain he'd been ignoring for years, because he wanted to share it with her, wanted her to understand him, even as the idea paralyzed him with fear.

Jensen, now on his fifth beer, leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, to watch as Skylar tried to get through to him. The camera, loose and hectic, illustrated the state of crisis. The set was claustrophobically small; the colors, mud brown and dirty. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, the screenwriters, had gone with the old “abusive past” excuse for Will's dysfunction, but Matt did the best he could with the material he'd given himself, and Jensen bought it. Given what he himself played on the screen, he kinda had to.

Anyway, Will didn't come through the crisis intact. Instead, he broke Skylar's heart and sent her packing. A mercifully brief montage of Will pining for her began to play, backed by familiar chords.

Jensen straightened up. “No way. Pause. Pause!”

“What?” Jared obeyed, interrupting himself mid-monologue. Throughout, he'd provided running commentary on the script, the acting, trivia, random anecdotes, and his mancrush on Matt Damon. 

Jensen grabbed his guitar. He played the opening of the song, raised his eyebrows.

“The song stuck in your head's from this movie? Why?” Jared didn't pretend Jensen shared his passion for this story. Jensen liked “Good Will Hunting” well enough, but he'd only seen it fifty times because of Jared.

The penny dropped; Jared looked down and away. He reached for one of the open bottles of beer on the coffee table (he kept bringing them in as Jensen emptied them), and swallowed half of it. He said, “Misha.”

His shoulders hunched. Jared didn't meet Jensen's eyes. He was uncomfortable talking about this, no surprise. When first Jensen started up with Misha, Jared gave him a “what the hell” speech that covered Danneel, the Show, the fans, and, possibly, the political situation in the Middle East; frankly, Jensen had been too lost in euphoria to give a damn. Jared had eventually adjusted, to the point of even running interference when they forgot themselves in public, but he never fully “got” it. He liked Misha well enough, but he didn't love him. Mish was just a guy he worked with, one he had a good time tormenting, but someone he could do without.

It was the only schism in their otherwise perfect accord.

“Yeah.” Jensen drained his beer and reached for another. He was drinking too much; this was his sixth beer in less than two hours. He was going to wind up giving a fourth-wall-breaking performance tomorrow at this rate, but he had to own it. The song he'd had stuck in his head was the backdrop of a scene in “Good Will Hunting” that, too accurately, reflected his life right now. His subconscious, or whatever energetic forces ruled the universe, had conspired to bring it to his attention.

“I miss him,” he said, and Jared looked over then with open acceptance in his hazel eyes—the expression Jensen needed to see.

Jared grabbed another beer off the table. 

They began to talk.

V. JULY 7th, 2012  
Jared set the anchor as Jensen turned off the motor. Seen through the haze, the buildings onshore had blurry edges, as though God had had a buzz on when He made the air.  
Jensen, on his back with his guitar on his chest, stared up at the clouds. They were piled white and seemed close enough to touch. Jared arranged himself so the swells of the waves wouldn't jostle his iPhone, which was what he'd use to record this.

“You sure?” he asked.

Waves slapped the hull of the boat. Gulls cried. A fish breached the water. The air was heavy with humidity and salt.

Jared regarded him, unspoken questions in his hazel eyes. Misha was back on the Show. Jensen hadn't told anyone but Danneel what he'd risked to make that happen, or even that he'd been involved. That was between himself and God. It was enough that he'd done it, and Misha was back. More importantly, Misha was back with him.

And yet, at the convention in October, when he'd told Mish he loved him, Misha had looked him in the eye and said, “I don't believe you.”

It hadn't hurt. 

Jensen had walked away marvelling, because he felt his commitment in his bones, the way he felt it for Dani, the way he felt it for Jared, and it would kill him if either of them said that shit to him. But he understood Mish. He was playing Will: hurt, fighting, blind to himself. What would've hurt bad was if Mish had turned his declaration into a joke, told him to donate to an orphanage, smiled a bright lie. As long as Misha cared enough to be honest with him, to not hide from him, Jensen could hope.

So yeah, he was sure.

“Okay,” Jared said. “Rolling.”

Jensen played.

VI. SEPTEMBER 19th, 2012  
Jensen lingered in his trailer after shooting. His car was still in the lot, so if anyone wanted to know if he was still around, well, they'd know. 

“So glad to meet you, Angeles.” 

Four years (and one day, as of fifteen minutes) ago, a guest star named Misha Collins, playing Castiel, a bit character doomed to die as soon as his plot function was fulfilled, walked onto a soundstage, blinking against the sparks and the squibs in his trench, and stood in front of Jensen, playing Dean.

Blue eyes. The color “blue” had wandered around Jensen's head in search of something to connect with.

Already burned by his crush on Jared, Jensen was wary. Even though Misha filled every single bar on his bi-fi, that didn't mean a damned thing. Misha was married. Misha was a guest star. There were a thousand reasons why Misha wouldn't respond to him.

Except that he did. Like a nuclear bomb.

It took months before Jensen admitted he was lost. If Misha didn't move in towards him in a scene, he did it himself. He loved the heat between them, sought it out like a moth. Couldn't stay away from him off stage, either—first, like an agent studying extraterrestrial life, but later like a meteor, burning because gravity.

Season five, Misha still on the damned Show, he lost it. There was no other way to put it. Before the season even started, one night, desperate, he went to his knees before Danneel, explaining, pleading, begging her to understand. He gave her the opportunity to walk away from him, he really did. Danneel knew all about his sexuality, but she hadn't known about the desire for this one man that had grown like ivy all through the mortar of him, pulling him apart.

He was going to Hell for it, but he had to tell her. He had to admit she was not enough. No matter how much he loved her, how much he wanted her, when he was buried inside her, sometimes he thought about Misha. He told her about his longing, his curiosity. What if this was the only time he ever felt this way? And after he said all these horrible things, he bowed his head and waited for the guillotine to fall.

She touched his chin.

She tipped his head up.

She met his eyes, her own steady.

And this is what she said: “I know who I am. I know who you are, and I know who he is. Listen to me: I am not threatened.”

So he married her.

“So glad to meet you, Angeles.”

The season four wrap party got out of hand, and it was Jared's fault, as it almost always was; he liked to be drunk, and he liked his friends drunk with him. This was before Jensen went onto his knees before the woman who was his best friend and lover, but after he'd acknowledged that the tension between himself and Misha wasn't going away. So, not the most comfortable moment.

Jared had Genevieve pressed in a corner, seducing her. Successfully, so far as Jensen could tell, and good for him. He'd marked Gen as his from their first scene together, and Jensen approved.

Leaving him to wrangle Misha, the space alien who'd invaded their set.

Jared had put on music, something low and throbbing and apt enough for what he meant to do with Gen later, but kind of unfair to Jensen now.

The dim lighting turned everyone else into fish swimming night waters. They were all Jensen's friends. Not one face he didn't trust. So when he turned towards Misha, sitting beside him on the distressed leather loveseat, he felt safe, and a little buzzed, but that wasn't a big deal. He hadn't been drinking heavily. He was in control.

He felt Misha's presence as heat all down his side, as though a secret sun shone only on him. Misha's eyes widened as they met his, pupils blown til they swallowed the blue, and sent the heat from that sun into his stomach. 

Mish angled his shoulders, walling them off from observers, locking them in a private world, and Jensen didn't mind.

When had he stopped minding? Misha had herded him from the moment he walked on set, separating him from Jared, stepping into his space, blocking his path, being underfoot, and at first it had driven him crazy. Soon enough he'd found that two could play, and he was bigger, with longer legs, broader shoulders. If he could rope Jared into the game, so much the better.

This, however, was no game. Their silence reminded Jensen, uncomfortable as the thought was, of a church. For all the music and conversation and laughter around them, there was only the two of them, breathing, and some things that needed to be said. 

Now the game was who would speak first.

Misha's hand brushed his thigh. The backs of his fingers, wedding ring spinning loose, but Jensen's skin burned in the touch's wake. So he touched Misha's arm, pressing so he'd feel it through the sleeve of yet another of his stupid garish sweaters, trailing down until his fingertips traced Misha's on the sofa cushion.

They touched like that until the lights came up and the people still standing rattled their keys. Drinking and touching, and around the fifth drink they started stroking one another's face, Jensen's fingertips reading the blades of Misha's cheekbones, Misha's fingers skittering over his mouth as though afraid it would open and say he wasn't allowed. Jensen parted his lips on one of those passes to lap Misha's middle finger, and he didn't miss the other man's start of surprise when he did. 

He'd never been more turned on in his life, dick painfully swollen against the restraining denim of his jeans, stomach cramped with desire. 

At the same time, it was tender, the way an injury is tender. Misha was trying to tell him something with all those gentle passes of his fingers, something Jensen wasn't quite getting. At the same time, every secret he'd ever kept out of shame or worry pressed against his lips like a mouthful of moths, beating their wings.

Three days later, he confessed everything to Dani.

“So glad to meet you, Angeles.”

“You never wanted to record anything before,” Steve said, raising an eyebrow.

Jensen's fans would buy his stool if he packed it inside Vegemite bottles, and they'd still smear it on their toast. He didn't want to demean the efforts of friends, true musicians, struggling and starving in a business that ran on marketability. 

“This is important,” he said, maybe too urgently, because Steve startled. “Sorry. But it is. I want to release this one track. Can you help me?”

“Sure, bud,” Steve said. 

Someone knocked on his door.


	2. Showrunners

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two times Jensen had to speak with the showrunners, and the two times they listened.

I. OCTOBER 29, 2011  
“Darius,” Misha said, “go get something to drink.”

Misha stared at Jensen from his position by the window, which had a view of city lights that Misha didn't turn to see. There was only one lamp turned on, but even in the gloom, Misha's eyes were still cobalt blue. 

The slumpy little dude named Darius crept by Jensen's side, leaving space between them as though Jensen were radioactive, and escaped. Jensen relaxed as soon as the latch clicked into place, and he turned around and threw the lock.

“Hope he has somewhere else to sleep,” he said.

“You think you're staying here?” 

He shrugged. “Two beds.” Purposely missing the point, and they both knew it. 

He went to him, since Misha still hadn't moved, frozen in the position he'd been in when Jensen opened the door.

He pretended to ignore Jensen's closeness, but his shoulder swayed towards him, he tipped his chin to watch him. The familiar heat kindled between their bodies. 

Jensen traced the bag under Misha's left eye. “You haven't been sleeping.” 

“No, I have not,” Misha said, turning away from the touch, rolling his eyes. “Wonder why that could be.”

“Don't be like that.” Jensen tipped his head, trying to catch Misha's gaze, but the man turned his back on him and walked to dresser, to the half-empty bottle of vodka, which he poured into a water glass and sipped. A good sign. If Misha were truly not open to talking, he would have set about sedating himself so it wouldn't be a possibility.

“So we fought.”

“We _are_ fighting,” Misha said, still not looking at him. 

“Over what? A stupid tweet?” Jensen got into his space again. 

“No.” Misha glared at him, glared harder when Jensen grabbed a glass off the nested stack on the dresser and poured himself a serving of the vodka. “Because you lied to me, because you're scared.”

“Tell me more about myself,” Jensen said, grinning over the rim of his glass.

“Jensen.” Misha's sharpness let Jensen know his attempt at charm had failed. “What the hell are you doing?” 

Jensen petted Misha's fingers, and the vodka in his glass rippled with his trembling. 

“I'm defending myself,” he said. He fixed him with a serious stare. “I didn't lie.”

Misha laughed a small, bitter laugh. “You love me. But don't tweet a picture of your fucking eye, because that—that's just obscene. Fuck off with that, Jen.”

“What, you think we should make it public? Hell, I can barely explain our relationship to myself, let alone thousands of people who've never even met us! Sounds like a plan, Mish. Let's do that.”

“Of course I don't think we should do that,” Misha said. “But at the same time, I have no interest in policing every single thing I think, say, and do!”

“I'm not asking you to do all that. Just police your Tweets.” 

“Because you 'love' me,” he said, twisting the verb into a sneer.

“Yeah, that's right,” Jensen said, his voice husky. “I love the things you think, say, and do. Don't ever change. Just—let me be for you, all right? Not for them.” He gestured to the invisible audience. “Don't turn me into a show.”

That sentence struck Misha like a physical blow. He set down his drink and bowed his head. His hands groped blindly at the edge of the dresser. 

“God, is that what you thought I was doing? I was just happy,” he whispered. “Fuck, no wonder—” 

“Whoa, hey, no—”

“I'm sorry.” Misha bowed his head, and his groping hands turned to fists. The cords stood out on his forearms, the backs of his hands, and damn it. Jensen felt lost. Misha had so _many_ emotions, all of them intense. Right now, he was about to explode. 

Jensen palmed his hard shoulder, pushed it back, opened him up and stepped inside. That was all he had to do. The pent-up energy vibrating through the other man's frame came unleashed, and Misha's violent kiss cut the flesh of Jensen's lips against his teeth. 

“Missed you—” Misha's words went right into Jensen's mouth. He inhaled them like his first gasp of air. The thought of never having this again, the flat, hard planes of Misha's body pressed against his, his palms slicking over Misha's back and ribs, Misha's mouth, his tongue, Misha's blue eyes, no longer hard with anger or blurred with exhaustion, almost manic with happiness.

Jensen said, “Gonna put you to sleep.” 

Misha grinned against his mouth, chuckled low and dirty, and kissed him again. “I wouldn't plan on that.”

But in the end, Jensen won that argument, won it with sweat and gasps and cum, and as he tucked his nose into Misha's damp hair and listened to his deep and steady breathing, he knew the next step he had to take. He loved this man. It was stupid and destructive and dangerous and a lot of other adjectives; it was demon blood, but he loved him.

He had to get him back on the Show.

II. NOVEMBER 14th, 2011  
Jensen hadn't wanted a formal appointment on the books and in the records, so he lurked in the hall outside Sera Gamble's office until Tina, her assistant, had to visit the bathroom. That didn't take long. Tina's tiny bladder, combined with her thirty-cup-a-day coffee addiction, ensured he only had to wait a few minutes.

The bathroom door closed behind Tina as the office door closed behind Jensen, and he swung around the gatekeeper's desk and opened the door to Sera's inner sanctum.

Sera looked up from her computer and he felt the first of many pangs of guilt. Her screen was crashing from all the open browser windows, and the fax machine was booked forever. 

She turned her back on all that and gave him her entire attention.

“What can I do for you?” 

He checked first to make sure her office door was shut and then sat down, scrubbing his palms over his denim-clad thighs. “This is personal.”

“Okay,” Sera said, leaning towards him, her face and body language open. 

“Misha,” Jensen said.

Her face darkened.

“I know,” she said. “Losing him has been hard on all of us. It's been hard on the Show.” She gestured at the barely-controlled chaos around her. “But I really think once the fans accept his loss—”

“I don't want them to.” Jensen tried to meet her eyes, but his face felt swollen and hot with embarrassment, so he kept his gaze on the edge of her desk. A piece of paper fluttered in the breeze from the air recirculation. “I can't accept it,” he said hoarsely.

“Um.”

That little syllable strolled in, looked around, and noped out of the conversation. 

He couldn't look at her.

“I understand,” she said, her voice careful and measured, “that you two were—are— _close,_ but that can't ever be a factor in my decision, as a showrunner, for what direction to take the Show. Can you understand the position you're putting me in, coming here like this?”

“I understand it,” Jensen said. “I wouldn't be here if I weren't ready to put it all on the line. Sera.” _Please don't force me to lay this out for you._ He met and held her gaze, though his heart pounded so hard his vision jarred in time to its beats.

She held his gaze for a long moment, the color draining from her face.

“Is this an ultimatum?” 

He nodded. Swallowed.

“You'd kill this Show? Jared's career? You're willing to do that. You'd go that far.”

He nodded again, and he couldn't hold her gaze any longer. His eyes dropped back to the trembling piece of paper. He could relate to that little piece of paper. 

The silence was thick and uncomfortable.

She exhaled and leaned back in her chair. 

Conversationally, she said, “Did you know they're talking about replacing me? Yeah. So bringing this to me now is kind of shitty, Jensen. I just wanted you to know that.”

“I know,” Jensen said, and his voice was a clotted wreck. “I'm sorry.” 

“No backing down, though, even knowing that? Even knowing that working him back into the story is going to ruin any chance I have of keeping my fucking job?” Her anger hit him like a brick, dense and heavy, and Jensen flinched. 

It didn't stop him, though. “If the Show is dead, none of us will have jobs.”

She growled. “Right now I'm having fun thinking of the various ways I could kill off Dean Winchester, you best believe that, bud. It wouldn't save me, but it'd feel good.” 

“The fans love Cas. You bring him back—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the pitch,” she snapped. “Get the hell out of my office. You've just added five more hours to my thirty hour day. Won't have many more of those, but you'll get your boyfriend back, and that's what matters, right?”

As he stumbled out of her office, rubber-jointed with relief and adrenaline, she muttered, “Actors!”

III. FEBRUARY 10th, 2012  
Jensen went to pick Misha up from the airport. Misha was alone this time; from his texts, Vicki flat-out refused to be uprooted again. She hadn't forgiven the Show for what it had done to her family. 

Jensen wished he had enough of a soul to feel bad about that, but instead, he tapped the steering wheel and sang along with the radio. He had the windows rolled down so the wind snatched the lyrics from his mouth. It was steel-gray Vancouver winter out there and he couldn't care less. If he tried to contain his happiness inside a snug, buttoned-down car, it would explode.

He pulled into the queue in the loading zone, scanning the crowd for dark, messy hair, blue eyes, a knot of people laughing hysterically. Any of those things would be signs of Mish.

Something collided with the car. Misha's laughter, from behind his head. 

He twisted to look. 

Misha had seen the open windows and elected to throw himself through one. Of course he did. Half his body hung outside the car, but he grabbed Jensen's face and stuck his long tongue in his mouth, both of them laughing around the messy kiss.

“You're going to kill yourself, genius,” Jensen said, breaking away, wiping away slobber with the side of his hand. 

“Paralyze myself is more likely,” said Misha, not giving a damn. 

Jensen put the car in park (it was a miracle he hadn't let it drift into the car in front of him) and grabbed Misha's bags where he'd left them, strewn on the asphalt for any asshole to run over. He put them in the trunk, laughing as Misha fought to extricate himself, legs kicking frantically.

He'd missed him.

He grabbed Misha around his hips and hauled him from the window, only to press him against the car (some distant part of his mind bugled alarm, wanted him to scan for inquisitive fans wielding iPhone cameras, but it was a very distant part and he ignored it) to suck on his earlobe. Misha groaned and writhed against him, his erection palpable through his crappy corduroy pants. Jensen bracketed his hips with his legs, grinding hard against him, kissing him, only moments away from—pray for him—taking him right there. 

Misha was the one to break the kiss and shove him away. “Get in the goddamned car,” he growled.

“Yes, sir,” Jensen said, grinning so hard his cheeks and the back of his ears hurt. 

They drove down the interstate. Misha hadn't asked him to roll up the windows, so Jensen left them down. Later, he reckoned the slap of cold air on his cock was the reason why he almost swerved into oncoming traffic when Misha pulled down his fly. 

IV. SEPTEMBER 7th, 2014  
Jensen stared down at the script for the much-ballyhooed 200th episode. His fingers clenched, crumpling the paper, and his eyes widened until it seemed they'd fall out of his skull. 

[[DEAN: Is that in the show?  
MARIE: Oh, no. Siobhan and Kristen are a couple in real life.  
MARIE: You can't spell subtext without s-e-x.]]

_you can't spell subtext without s-e-x are a couple in real life real life are a couple s-e-x_

Jensen exploded out of his chair.

The walk to Jeremy's office was swopped clean out of his head. When he returned to himself, he was slamming the script down on Jeremy's desk and roaring, “What the hell is this?”

“The script for the 200th episode? Says so, anyway.” Jeremy pointed at the header.

“Not that, you asshole, I mean this,” and Jensen's shaking finger stabbed down at the offending passage.

“Oh, that,” Jeremy said, still weirdly calm. “That's known as either a reference or a shout-out. Depends on the milieu.”

Jensen all but fell into a chair and cradled his head in his hands. “I don't think you're getting this, though I can't understand why the hell not. You've seen me stick my tongue down his throat enough times. You're about to _out me_ on _national television_ , you son of a bitch!”

“Relax,” Jeremy said.

Jensen glared up at him through his lashes. 

“I think I need to explain.”

“You bet you need to explain,” he said, voice shaking all over the place.

Jeremy leaned over the desk. “I know things are tough right now,” he said. Jensen only goggled at him. Yeah, sureshit things were tough right now. So the answer was to make them tougher? He was too astonished to scream anymore.

“I say that so you know I'm not judging you for this,” he said. “You have a right to be concerned, but listen to me, please. What you have with Misha's been going on for years. Some of the fans have figured it out, but nobody takes it seriously, and you know why? The whole shipping concept. You've learned a little about that.”

“More than I ever wanted to know,” Jensen grumbled. The adrenaline drained away, leaving him cold and exhausted.

Jeremy regarded him kindly through the thick rims of his geek glasses. “If we left the ships out of this episode, we'd be missing the fandom's heart. So we acknowledge it, but Jensen, acknowledgement doesn't equal confirmation. If anything, by pointing it out and calling it a ship, we legitimize that read of the text, not the read that goes, 'this is really happening.' The conspiracy theorists keep that, okay?”

“But then why not stuff in there about me and Jared?”

“Covered it with the boys by the car,” Jeremy said firmly. “Look, I know you're doing your utmost to support him. I know what it's costing you. I'm not inviting any more trouble to your doorstep in that department.”

“Yeah,” Jensen said, clearing his throat, “thanks for that.” 

Jeremy reached across the desk to clap him on the shoulder. “Jay, I love you. You have to know that.” 

“I know it,” Jensen said, and he scrubbed his face with his hands. He smiled, but it was watery. “Guess I just acted real stupid, huh?”

“Understandably so, but yeah, stupid.” Jeremy grinned at him, then answered his ringing cell phone, so Jensen let himself out of the office.

He wanted to go back to his trailer, maybe take a nap to reset his burned-out adrenal glands, but instead he detoured to Jared's trailer, except that Jared wasn't there. The gym trailer, then.

Jared was in the middle of a set, his hair dripping sweat—the makeup people would murder him—but he smiled in greeting as he pushed the bar up off his chest. White earbuds dangled from his ears. Jensen straddled a chair and opened up Pandora to listen to while he waited.


	3. Mugged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of Misha's mugging in 2015 in Minnesota. Some light editing with regards to Jared, as I've learned more since the initial drafting of this chapter.

I. AUGUST 22nd, 2015  
Misha had a funky, musky odor when Jensen bent to hug him, awkward and one-armed to keep from jostling him; a little like urine if urine also contained battery acid, and of course, he also smelled of blood—a raw, meaty smell—and alcohol. 

“Makeup guys went all out,” Misha joked. He was still buzzed.

“Why haven't they—?” Jensen gestured over his own face, letting the sentence hang. Misha sat there, swollen, bruised, holding a washcloth filled with ice against his split lip. The washcloth was blood-stained. Tiny clots clung to the terrycloth like blackberries. Jensen looked away and swallowed.

“Cut went through the lip, so I have to wait for the plastic surgeon to get out of bed.” Misha rolled his eyes. It was a little past two in the morning, so that was going to take awhile. 

The overhead hospital fluorescents were unkind to him. He looked dead, but they did that to everyone.

Jensen pulled the uncomfortable plastic chair up to the bed and sat down. He rested his hand on Misha's thigh, felt his heat through the denim, wanted to pet down the hard muscle, so he made a fist instead. That wasn't allowed any more. None of this was allowed. 

“Where's Jared?” Misha asked. 

The hospital tiles were off-white flecked with green and brown, which helped conceal tiny spatters of dried blood, but Jensen noticed them anyway. He studied them to avoid Misha's eyes.

“You snuck out on him,” Misha said, and laughed. In his Indio-Russian accent, which was actually improved by his swollen mouth, he said, “Welcome, Dmitri, it is a new life. You are become a homewrecking whore.”

Misha was trying to cheer him up, but that wasn't going to happen. 

Jensen's fist tightened. “Rob called me. He said you told him not to, but he did. You said not one fucking text!”

Jensen, good Texas boy that he was, hardly ever cursed in anger. The ice cubes in Misha's washcloth crunched as his fingers tightened in reaction.

“He disobeyed me? I'll have to punish him. Next year.” He held the ice against his face and groaned for comedy, but when Jensen didn't laugh, he became serious again. “You made it clear how things had to be.”

“What clear?” Jensen kicked off the chair to pace. “'Go off on your own' clear? 'Get beat up' clear? What exactly were you looking for on the wrong side of town, Misha?” 

He stared at the wall and did some deep breathing. Misha, bleeding. Not the best time to air out his frustrations.

“Jen,” Misha said at last, and there was affection and comfort in his use of the nickname. “This is hardly the first time I've been in the emergency room. Not even in the top ten. Calm down.”

“You reminding me of how hard you try to die doesn't help,” Jensen said. He sat back down and, unable to stop himself, moved a strand of Misha's hair off his forehead. Damned if it wasn't tacky with blood.

He said, “I wish I'd been there. I'd've killed those guys.” 

“Three on two would have made for better odds.” Misha grinned, which started his lip bleeding again. He held the washcloth up to his face.

“Let me,” Jensen said, covering his cold fingers with his own. Misha gave him the washcloth, weeping pink as the ice cubes melted. 

“Everyone out in the waiting room?” he muttered, turning his head to the side so Jensen didn't have to stretch. Jensen rested his cheek on Misha's pillowcase, ignoring his acrid smells of stress and blood.

In response to the question, Jensen shook his head, his hair scratching against the starched linen. “No, Rob sent them home.”

“Good.” Misha blinked sleepily, his exotic Russian eyelids like sails slowly drifting down, and Jensen smiled and squeezed his hand.

Rob had met him outside the ER and steered him to a side entrance, then said he'd round everybody up and get them out of there so Jensen could stay as long as he needed. He was one of Misha's closest friends; he could be trusted to conceal Jensen's visit in a way the others could not.

Because there shouldn't be any reason to conceal it. Jensen clenched his jaw. It wasn't Jared's fault. He was sick and he needed support, but there was no denying this sucked, creeping around on his brother to see his injured “it's complicated” ex.

“You don't have to stay,” Misha said. His voice was slurred. “Percocet plus booze equals sleep.”

“I'll stay until the surgeon gets here,” Jensen said. “Then they'll give you the good stuff and put your face back together. I'd just be in the way for all that.”

Misha mumbled, “You have to tell them where everything goes, or I'll wind up looking like a Picasso.”

“What's that, a fruit?” Jensen joked. But Misha was asleep.

II. A MONTAGE SPANNING AUGUST 2014 TO FEBRUARY 2015  
Jared blew the paper sleeve off his straw so it struck Jensen's cheek like an arrow, and, holding the straw between his teeth, shoved it through the dimple in the plastic lid of his soda. He sucked down the drink until air rattled through the crushed ice on the bottom, then looked up and smiled brightly. 

“So, have fun last night?”

Jensen blushed, then blushed harder because he knew it made the marks on his neck stand out even more. Kori, the makeup artist, groaned and dabbed more concealer over them. “Shut up.”

“You gots some splainin' to do to the director.”

“I said shut up.”

“Dude, how can I? You're late, and you look like the fluffer for a vampire-themed gay porn.”

Jensen threw the cap off the foundation at him.  
\---  
“He's coming, all right? Give him a minute,” Jensen snapped at the assistant director, whose constant, fluttery panic was getting on his nerves. 

“We're behind schedule—”

“He knows, okay? I know, we all know. Just relax. We got this.”

Jensen shook his head as the AD scuttled off to make the lighting guys' lives miserable. It was too friggin' cold, even for November in Vancouver, and he beat his fists together as he went to go find Jared, because if he had to stand around getting frostbite, then dammit, so did he.

Jared's trailer was dark and silent, so he probably wasn't in there, but Jensen tried the door anyway. He was surprised when it opened, and he stepped in, peering around in the gloom, calling, “Jared?”

From the darkness, a strangled breath.  
\---  
“I don't want to talk to anybody,” Jared said. “I just wish—I wish they'd leave us alone.”

“Well, yeah, man, we all want that sometimes,” Jensen said. He was tense all through his body, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, and he had one bitch of a headache. He longed for one of Misha's scalp massages. The man had powerful fingers. 

Not an avenue of thought he could walk down just now, and he was a selfish bastard for even thinking it. 

He palmed the nape of Jared's powerful neck, because his brother refused to lift his head, and, forcibly displacing all thoughts of Misha from his mind (even though he was back on set for his first episode in two months _shut up_ ) said, “What's going on? Talk to me. I'm here.”  
\---  
“When's the last time you ate?”

“Not hungry.”

“Shut up. I made this, and you're gonna eat it.”

“Sure, Jay,” but he didn't.  
\---  
Jared couldn't stop laughing.

At first, it was a relief, like finally, like his brother felt better and they could all laugh again, but Jared couldn't stop laughing, he _couldn't stop laughing,_ and like the twist of a spinning top, the moment turned.  
\---  
_Click._

Jensen was already rocketing across the trailer, pile-driving into Jared's big body, scrabbling for the pistol, which he knew was unloaded going off that dry-fire, but it _didn't fucking matter_ , because his brother had just _mimed suicide_ right in front of him, and all he saw were white stars, and his breath tore out his throat. 

He didn't know whether to save Jared or kill him for making him feel this way. His heart beat like a fist squeezing blood.  
\---  
“Dude, I know you love him, but. I can't go on like this, you know? All the screaming is just. Getting to me.”

“What's screaming?”

“This thing you got with Misha, it prints, you know? The fans, this Dean/Cas thing. Sam doesn't matter anymore? Everybody screaming. Everything is screaming.”

“Everything? Is screaming.”

“Stay with me, man. Talk. Don't let me hear it, okay? Please?”  
\---  
“He needs time,” Jensen said. He leaned over the table, his forearms bracketing his after-dinner drink. It was a nice restaurant. It had been a good date, Misha in high spirits, laughing, smiling, touching him across the table with promises in his fingertips. But now they'd hit the reason for it, and Jensen was a sweaty mess with his stomach in knots. He wondered if he were about to be sick.

“He said that would help him. More time from me.”

“What time?” Misha asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Your time.”

Misha's eyes met his, searing blue. Imitation candle-flames couldn't alter that color, nor did it transmute his hard expression into anything better. And yet, someone had to hurt here—Jensen was definitely going to hurt, here—and Misha would survive it, while Jared would not. So his choice was clear.

“You mean the time you already negotiated with him to set aside so we can be together. That time.”

“Don't be like that, Mish...”

“Don't tell me how to be. This is just so fucking sad. You really are going to bend your life around his forever.” 

“He's my brother.”

Misha rolled his eyes and flopped back in his booth. “Your brother, your brother, I am so sick and tired of hearing that. One of these days, you're going to have to step up and live your own fucking life!”

“Not when his is on the line,” Jensen said, checking a surge of anger. Misha was being unreasonable, but Misha didn't love Jared, he loved _him,_ and here he was, telling him that even the meager amount of time he could give him was being taken off the table.

“It's not forever,” he said, trying like hell to save something. “Just until he gets well.”

Misha heard the truth inside the lie and smiled, loose and mocking. 

“You talk like all he needs is some chicken noodle soup,” he said. “Jensen, I'll tell you what. I am so utterly over competing with him for you, I'm actually glad you finally made up your mind. He wins, and that's fine.” 

He stared Jensen dead in the eye. “You made a decision. Now I can make one, too. You know I'm not going to just sit around and wait.”

Jensen flinched hard enough to splash his drink. Misha and Vicki had an open marriage, but so far as Jensen was concerned, he had one rule: no men or women but himself and Vicki, just as he had no one else but Danneel. Misha had chafed under that restriction, but he'd accepted it. 

What Misha had just said now was, in effect, you toss me aside like this, I'm going outside to play. Not gonna lie, that hurt like hell. His eyes flicked up from his drink, letting Misha see that pain. 

Misha's fingers twitched towards his hand, resting on the table. Misha always touched him when he hurt, but now, he didn't.

“Then it looks like I gotta turn you loose,” he said, gruff. 

“Fine. I accept. Have fun with your life.” Misha avoided his eyes, downed his drink and ditched out of the booth.

And that's how it ended.

XII. APRIL 17th, 2015  
Jensen ended the call with the suits in the south. It had not gone his way. It had not gone well. It had not been a total disaster, since he managed to get through his major points without embarrassing himself, but that was about all that could be said for it.

“It's all right,” Misha said behind him. “You know I'm not taking it that way.”

“Taking it,” Jensen said, with a short laugh. 

“You know what I mean,” Misha said, with a crooked smile.

They were on a closed set for this scene, the heart of the episode, in which Dean turned on Castiel and beat him bloody. Though it wasn't made explicit, the scene had a strong domestic-violence vibe, down to the helpless flutter of Cas's hands as Dean closed in on him—a last-ditch attempt at forestalling the beating. 

This was stupid. Cas was a fully-powered angel. He could send Dean into orbit. At the very least, he could minimize the amount of punishment he took. However, the writers had decreed that Cas would not fight back, so Jensen had no choice but to batter Misha against a desk, his face painted with blood.

That was one of Jensen's serious problems with the scene. Not only did it make no logical sense, but in the context of Cas's subtextual relationship with Dean, he, as an actor, thought this a bad line to cross. How could Dean come back from this? He'd beaten his friend, brother, lover, whatever Cas was to Dean's, face bloody. That was specified. Blood. Even though Cas had his grace and could heal anything—it was dumb.

The other problem was the closed set. No Jared, who'd seized the opportunity to fly home for a week. Days alone with Misha, tossing him around, no personal space, eye contact—all the things that had gotten him into trouble to start with. Memories flooded back, and while it was great for the camera—those complicated emotions would show in his eyes and print to the screen—it was more than he wanted to feel.

It'd been weeks since Misha had let him touch him. 

“My safe word is 'pickles,'” Misha'd joked, trying to put him at ease, and he'd had to stop himself from correcting him, from saying in front of everybody, “No it's not, it's 'jabberwocky.'”

“Pickles!” Misha screamed as he sailed through the air to land against the pile of books, and Jensen laughed until his eyes stung with tears, all the tension let out of the scene—and the room—like air from a pierced balloon.

“There's good BDSM and bad BDSM,” Misha said in Cas's voice, instead of his scripted line.

“So which one is this?” Jensen-as-Dean asked, going with it.

“There's a distinct absence of leather, so this must be the bad kind,” Misha-as-Cas said.

He folded again.

When Jared was on set, Misha was focused, subdued, fixated on getting the scene in the can as quickly as possible. It sucked all the fun out of working with him. But Jared was putting himself back together. While Jensen didn't entirely understand this new version of his brother, if it was stable, it was better than the old one. There'd be time, once Jared was secure in himself, to get to know him again.

What hurt most was the fact that Jared, who seemed to believe it all over between himself and Misha, celebrated the end of what he perceived as a waste of time. He'd never taken it seriously. To him, it was sex—really weird sex, like wearing diapers or frotting against balloons. Jensen was still too scared for him to correct him.

And overall, he agreed. Life was certainly easier now that he didn't have to juggle Misha along with Jared and Danneel. The Show was tighter and more focused without the overt romanticism between himself and Castiel. He told himself that whenever it hurt, and sometimes he believed it.

He slammed Misha down on the desk, tumbled Misha onto the floor, and Misha let out a small, pained whimper. 

That was a break in character. That was a real whimper.

Damn it.

The camera was still rolling, and Jensen didn't want to have to do this again, so he stayed Dean, pulled Cas down like he was supposed to, and flipped him over, fighting off memories of manipulating Misha's body this way in other contexts. He clapped him on the chest: _Are you okay?_

“Dean, please,” Cas groaned.

Blood welled up in Misha's mouth. That was a special effect, and it was in the script, but it still chilled Jensen to the marrow. He grabbed Cas's tie, and the director called, “Cut! Print!”

“Mish,” he said, kneeling. “What happened?”

“Got the wind knocked out,” Misha said, and his voice did sound breathless and hollow. 

“Fifteen to set cameras,” the director called. “Good job, Misha, that looked great.”

Jensen gave Misha a hand up from the floor. Jensen was shaking. 

“Creep,” he said, referring to the director. 

“I've worked with worse,” Misha said. 

Misha's face, smeared with streaks of fake blood. The blue of his eyes was intense against all that red.

“What's wrong?” Misha asked, because Jensen's shakes weren't subsiding, they were getting worse. The air swept out of the world with a speed which left his skin prickling and his fingers numb.

“Jesus,” Misha said. “Come on.”

He bundled Jensen off behind the wall where no one could see them and pulled him into a hug, cradled his head against his shoulder and crooned into his ear, an incomprehensible hum whose only meaning was comfort.

Jensen moved his lips to Misha's ear, breathed against Misha's neck, knowing how unfair he was being but—oh God, he'd spent so long being Jared's rock, giving him strength, and no one had been there for him, no one but Danneel, who'd gone back to being Switzerland on the subject of Misha. He was simply out of strength, and now he consciously gave himself permission to soak Misha in, fair or not. If there was one thing he knew, Misha had strength to spare. 

Misha allowed himself to be used, stiffening slightly under Jensen's hands but otherwise still, rumbling without interruption in his ear even as Jensen kissed the stiff, curving edge of his own. Under the Play-Dough smell of fake blood, he caught a whiff of the herbal soap he favored, something handmade and hippie that left a light scent of woodsmoke and green grass and flowers behind. 

Jensen grew bolder, pressed him against the wall, let him feel his weight. The body he'd been pretending to brutalize was warm and whole and hard under his own. With a feeling like a punch to the pit of his stomach, he felt Misha's swift reaction to his closeness. Fast on the heels of rising, desperate lust, he remembered he was not the only man Misha reacted to these days, and he moved his lips away from Misha's ear, he pressed his cheek to Misha's shoulder, and he moved his hips away—just in time, really. 

Misha slumped a little, whether in disappointment or relief, Jensen couldn't tell. Misha was shielded against him; he couldn't read him like he once could, and that, perhaps, made him lonelier than the loss of his access to his body. 

“I know,” Misha said, the first clear words he'd said. “It's hard.”

Jensen chuckled a little at the bad joke, but he caught the meaning and said, “This is tough.”

“Danneel not playing nice?” Misha asked.

“She won't let me cry on her shoulder, that's for damned sure,” Jensen said.

“That's my girl.”

“I can't have you corrupting my wife, now.”

“Don't kid yourself. She came pre-corrupted. I'm really just taking advantage of a bad situation,” Misha shrugged. Jensen's shakes were gone and he was breathing more easily, so Misha opened his hands, signalling it was time to break the hug. Only Jensen didn't step back right away. He'd missed this too much to deny himself a single moment of it.

Misha met his eyes. His pupils were dilated, but his gaze was candid and direct. “How's Jared these days?” he asked.

“Relieved,” Jensen said, cursing his honesty as soon as the word left his mouth. He saw it cut Misha, whose eyelashes flinched shut for a flash-second. 

“Okay,” Misha said, recovering. “Moment over. This was good.” He patted Jensen's cheek, a little mockingly. “Tormenting each other like this is fun. We should do it again sometime.” 

Jensen stepped back, gave Misha an avenue, and Misha started to walk away.

He looked back over his shoulder. “You said it wasn't stopping, back then.”

“I did,” Jensen said. He said, “I meant it.”

A spasm of pain crossed Misha's face. He nodded and turned away, Cas's trench swirling around his knees.


	4. Honey in the Comb, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First Time Fic, PWP. (I'm eehhh about this one now that I'm deeper into the work. This isn't actually how I think their first time went. But it's well-written, imo, so I'm leaving it).

I. AUGUST 2nd, 2009  
Misha took his beer bottle, his fingers tracing his so Jensen shuddered. He up-ended and drained it, his long throat working in hard pulls. 

“You're not going to be drunk for this,” he said, pointing the empty neck of the bottle at Jensen.

He tossed it away to clink in a dark corner, which under normal circumstances would make Jensen insane, but not today. Today he was consumed with a different insanity, centered on his strutted cock, straining against the denim of his jeans. All circuits were currently busy, so his neatness obsession would have to please stay on the line.

Misha approached him where he sat on the edge of the narrow camp bed, Jensen's eyes widening til it seemed they were about to fall out of his head. He swallowed, his throat thick and swollen, as Misha stood between his splayed thighs. Dark eyes flicked down to the evidence of his desire, rock hard, visibly pulsing, and then—ignored it.

He said, “This is not going to be about you.”

“Okay,” Jensen stammered. Misha could say this was about Queen Elizabeth and he'd still be down. Misha wore Cas's scruffy beard. It made him just that much a stranger, added an extra edge of weird lust to this thing. Their first time, and Misha was some unknowable amalgamation, half Misha, half hopeless fallen angel, all threat. 

Misha's eyes flicked hungrily down to his mouth, and the threat lessened, just a little. Big talk from the new guy, but he was just as much a beggar to this party as Jensen was himself. Deep down, Jensen was a little disappointed, but hey, the promise was still there. 

His lips parted without his conscious volition when Misha touched them, the tip of his tongue chasing his fingertips, trying to accelerate this process—like c'mon, hadn't they suffered enough?--but Misha slipped away to trail over his chin, along the joint of his jaw. Jensen fisted his hands in the sheets.

Misha pressed closer, his thigh finally making contact with Jensen's cock, and yeah, that was more like it. He flexed his ass for friction, sensation, and Misha didn't stop him, watching Jensen's face as though the Bible were being rewritten in real time there. He swallowed and Jensen gasped, soft and needy. This. A whole year of this, looks, swallows, _damn_ , were they going to get it or not?

Misha's white teeth flashed in the low light from the single lamp. “I like watching you be desperate for me,” he said. His mouth flattened, serious once more, as he reminded him, “I told you, this isn't about you.”

“Please,” Jensen said.

“Too soon,” Misha said, tsking. His fingers followed the jump of Jensen's blood up the artery in his neck. “Jesus, Jensen. Where's your self-respect?”

“Maybe try not bringing Jesus into this?” Jensen's voice shook as his fingers burned his skin.

“He can watch if He wants.” Misha shrugged, careless, blasphemous, rockstar angel, outcast child. 

He suddenly clasped the back of Jensen's neck and claimed his mouth in a rush, his tongue intruding without warning, insistent and thirsty. Their teeth clicked together like pebbles flicked against the window of a childhood crush, a sound, a small dull pain that somehow encompassed summer nights and rain. All this went through Jensen too fast to understand, but it changed the way he felt about this encounter. Added an edge of nostalgia and sweetness. His first boy-love had been that way, pebbles on the glass and night-time thunder. Secret and hidden, but also sweeter for all that.

Misha was not on that page at all. He pushed him back onto the bed, still kissing him, heavy on him. He wanted to wrap his arms around him. He wanted to read the subtle bones in Misha's back, to use this sex to show him how grateful he was for every laugh, every time his lashes drooped to hide the emotions in his eyes, and yet he couldn't. He was racked between tenderness and lust, off-balance, beginning to feel afraid.

Misha broke the kiss and stared into Jensen's eyes for a long moment—reading him. And no. This could not be about feelings. Dani had given him the go ahead to have what he needed; she hadn't given the go ahead to be replaced. She trusted him to keep this safe for all of them. She actually

It wasn't Misha's fault. Jensen was just being himself, weak and parasitical as always. He twisted his face away, avoided his eyes. He didn't want Misha to know this about him. He wished he didn't know it himself.

“It's all right,” Misha said, coming out of the role, his voice different, complicated. He ran his fingers inside the gap between the waistband of Jensen's pants and his flat stomach, nails sliding against skin, the hangnail on his middle finger scratching like a cat's claw. He stared down at his fingers as they disappeared, used his thumb to pop the button on the jeans and said, dark and layered, “I know what you want. I know what you need, and believe me, I know the difference.”

The combination of sudden looseness at his waist and Misha's words made Jensen arc his back and whine. His cock wept, a wet spot spreading on the denim. 

Misha's palm was there, warm against the rapidly-cooling dampness. “Yeah, get wet for me,” he said into Jensen's mouth before he snatched a hard kiss. His palm heavy, scrubbing him through the maddening, muffling fabric, the pressure stoking him. 

“Please,” Jensen said again, his voice breaking, urgent.

Misha bit him, low where Dean's typical plaid overshirt would easily hide it, hard enough to leave a mark. Tiny vessels broke—he could feel the pulse of the universe, as sensitive as he was right now—and blood leaked into the spaces between. He barked a short, hard cry. 

“Okay,” Misha said into its echoes, his voice unsteady. He pulled the zipper down. Jensen lifted his hips, shucked and writhed, only to be held up by the fact that he hadn't taken off his shoes.

Misha choked out a laugh. “My fault. Hang on.” He ducked down the edge of the bed, his fingers stumbling on the laces, and threw the boots into the darkness as casually as he had the beer bottle, thump, thump. Jensen's jeans followed suit, but he didn't hear the soft whumph of their landing over the roar of his blood in his ears. His rigid cock, freed at last, slapped against his stomach, a shaft of heat. 

Misha moaned helplessly at the sight of it, big, uncut, head glistening wet and engorged, like a plum nicked just enough to dribble juice. Jensen grinned, a little wild, more than a little smug. He'd heard enough about his nice cock to own it, and, as it turned out, he loved making Misha break character here as much as he did on set.  
Misha licked his lips, transfixed, until Jensen cleared his throat to get his attention. 

“I'm still here,” he husked out, and then he pushed Jensen back with one hand pressed against his flexed stomach. He still knelt between his thighs, his breath gusting cool against the hot skin of his scrotum, as he took his scent off his most private places. 

That almost made him lose his grip on this thing again, made him feel open, vulnerable. “No,” he said, not knowing what he denied.

“Shh. This isn't about you,” Misha said again. He pressed wet kisses on Jensen's inner thighs, starting near the knees, working his way up until his breath once again panted against him. Then his tongue flicked against his opening and Jensen's shoulders rocketed off the bed.

“Lay back and relax already.” Misha's voice a flat command, eyes flashing hot and blue.

“But—” 

Misha rolled his eyes and groaned dramatically. “Just how many times does it take to get this through your head?” he said. “Shut up and let me enjoy myself.”

“But it's disgusting.” Jensen finally managed to finish his thought. He was proud of himself. He'd had this done to him before, but it was an act he refused to perform. It was unsanitary, and his pleasure in it rode side-by-side with revulsion.

“Guess I'm into disgust,” Misha said, grinning up at him, loose and bright. “You smell good to me, Jen. You taste good. You showered, you're clean. Now, in all seriousness, shut the fuck up.”

Jensen flopped back on the bed, and Misha went to work in earnest, fucking him with his tongue. He lost himself in sensations of wet heat, thrusting, opening. He had permission to enjoy this. Misha was only using him to please himself, after all. 

His tongue was just long enough to tease his prostate, but not enough to really stimulate it, turning the whole thing into an extended tease that had him writhing, his moans ricocheting off the walls of the trailer. He prayed he couldn't be heard in the lot. It was late and most everyone had gone home—he hoped. 

Whatever. He guessed he'd live with a few weird looks in the morning. His head was light, his body buzzing, blood full of bees. He had never been attended to so thoroughly.

At some point, Misha substituted his tongue with skilled, lubed fingers, pressing the swollen gland inside him, in the meantime sucking kisses on his belly, his hips, avoiding his engorged dick, which twitched and drooled. Orgasm hunched like a rough beast just over the horizon, panting, enormous, the color of sand, haunches and shoulders rippling with power, but each time it gathered itself to pounce, Misha pulled back, touched him elsewhere, until it subsided.

From a great distance, he heard his own voice, begging, moaning, cursing, language pulled from him against his will. He couldn't make out the words. Maybe there were none.  
From the same great distance, as he jolted off the mattress with each knowledgeable stroke of Misha's fingers, he wondered how Misha was doing. A note of self-hatred almost became the dominant tune as he thought of him, aroused, holding off to see to him. Selfish bastard that he was.

“Mish—” He fought through a world of curtains to say it, because all the sudden, this was the most important thing. “C'mere. Come to me.”

“Yes,” Misha said, rough and low. Jensen's blurred vision focused enough to tell that he'd managed to take off his clothes, his hair standing on end, eyes as black as a demon's. His cock stood against his belly, shining with precum. 

He gripped his hips and hauled him to the end of the bed with easy strength, veins standing out on his biceps. His body, broad-shouldered, flat-hipped, muscles and veins roped over bone, beautiful and balanced. Jensen hissed as lust shoved needles down his nerves.

“C'mon,” he gritted.

Misha bent over him then, thrust his tongue into his mouth, and Jensen was too blind to think about where that tongue had been. He sucked it, twined it with his own, Misha's flavor his favorite wine. Misha hard against him, heavy on him, muscles bunching and rippling as he moved. His nipples tiny buttons, velvet beneath his thumbs, skin like silk over ribs, over muscle and bone. 

Misha broke the kiss first, lips chapped red and distorted with desire as intense as pain. Foil crackled as he unwrapped a condom, then grabbed the ready bottle of lube and slicked himself up, shuddering at the touch of his own hand. The sight of his pleasure damn near made Jensen come. Wildly, he yearned for all the times they had in the future to happen right now. He wanted to suck him off. He wanted to give him a double handjob, his own cock hot and slick inside his fist, gliding against Misha's. He wanted him gasping, moaning, doubled over because of him, and he wanted that now. 

He opened without Misha having to urge him, and when he did, Misha's look of pure, humble gratitude slid as easily as a sharpened knitting needle between the ribs around his heart.

Then he entered him.

Jensen breathed out, focused on relaxing, but he was already so open and wet that the Zen routine wasn't necessary. The pain he'd anticipated—it had been so long since he'd done this—didn't happen. Instead, there was only fullness and the pressure of Misha's erection against his over-stimulated prostate, a bolt of pure pleasure that made him clamp everything against its strength.

Misha himself let out a choked gasp, almost a cough, and his cock jumped inside Jensen's sensitive channel. When Jensen could risk opening his eyes, Misha had his head bowed until his chin almost touched his chest, the muscles of his forearms stark wires as he braced himself against the mattress. 

Jensen couldn't help it. He reached up to palm his cheek. When Misha opened his eyes and met his, he tried to put all the gratitude he felt into his expression. Misha wouldn't last long, he knew, and he also knew that would embarrass him. His intention was to reassure him: he was not disappointed. 

“You shouldn't feel so fucking good,” Misha said, almost angry with it. He pumped, slow, his face contorted with concentration. 

“Neither should you.”

Misha shhed him, closed his eyes against his gaze, and Jensen wished he wouldn't, but at the same time, he was grateful. Every stroke of his cock inside him summoned the beast, lumbering closer, crowning the horizon, stretching out to a run. If Misha stared him in the eyes while that animal approached, Jensen didn't know if he could hold to his resolution.

This was sex, he reminded himself. This was pleasure. This was scratching an itch. Sex. All it was.

Never mind the way the weak light of the lamp picked out Misha's sharp cheekbones, the angle of his jaw, the long triangle of his Adam's apple in his vulnerable neck. Never mind the flex and fall of his flanks as he took him. Never mind his weird, quirky humor that always, no matter how Jensen guarded himself against it, sent him to his knees, or the beauty of his philosophy of life that focused on whimsy and kindness, a stark contrast to his world, which only wanted to talk about what had failed or was about to fail.

Including Jensen himself, a failure on so many levels. 

But he was not failing here. Misha sped up, his rhythm breaking at the crest of each wave, stuttering out as the pleasure inside him broke his concentration, and Jensen was there with him. Every muscle tight and yearning, racing towards completion, blood pressure and heart rate through the roof, skin flushed hot as hell, a physical catastrophe in the works.

Misha made noises now, broken, staggered, his beautiful mouth falling open to show a flash of teeth and the darkness inside, eyes screwed shut. His breathing a tattered flag unfurling, and it was all so gorgeous that Jensen fought back his orgasm—battled that beast as though it would kill him—just so he could witness this a little while longer.

But it ended; it ended because Misha, doubled, thrusting, totally disorganized and wrecked, coughed a harsh curse and spent, his cock leaping inside him, and it was too much. The beast spun in its prints in a flash and pinned him, tore out his belly.

The orgasm, so long deferred, pulsed out from his center through his limbs, out the top of his skull. It went on a stupidly long time. From a distance, Jensen heard the sounds he made: they were ridiculous, his face probably more so.

When he finally came back, he found Misha watching him, quiet, composed. He was wrapped around him, one leg between his own, the other on top, his arm on his waist. He was warm. The smell of their sex hung in the air, a complicated musk with the commercial, plastic note of lubricant a discordant note within it. 

He wanted to kiss him, but he didn't. He closed his eyes, turned his face against the pillow. 

Then Misha disentangled himself and stood. Jensen heard him gather his clothes. Cold air slapped the skin where he once had been.

“You're welcome,” he said, and left him there, alone.


	5. Honey in the Comb, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Porn with a little plot in Rome.

I. MAY 12-13th, 2013  
Damned bourbon.

Jensen studied the bourbon in his glass, golden like honey as it caught the light, then turned his attention back to the panoramic view of glittering Rome. He leaned his elbows on the balcony railing and soaked it all in: the marble buildings with their fleshlike glow, the narrow streets full of tiny cars and tinier people, the smell of liquor, like leather and pepper. 

He should be freaking out. Thanks to the double Ty had served them onstage, the wheels had come off the bus in his joint panel with Misha. There was no sugar-coating it: short of actually kissing, they could not have been gayer for each other.

Weirdly, considering the difficult conversations awaiting him back in the States, his only concern had been Danneel. She was too heavily pregnant to fly, but she'd livestreamed the panel from home. He'd been unable to swallow through a throat tight with worry until her text finally came: a few screens of “haha” at international rates, and then, “guess that'll learn you to drink onstage.”

Misha's phone had gone off a moment later, and he took the call inside the room. Jensen already knew what she'd say to him: a lot of angry “I trusted you to look out for him,” and “What the hell happened,” and “Dammit, Misha!” Because all that was true, too. But then, that was Misha's problem, not his.

He and Danneel were okay. As for the rest of it, well, what was done, was done. Might as well relax. If he'd learned nothing else from Mish, he'd learned that. Glass of bourbon dangling from fingers roughened by guitar strings, that was exactly what he did.

Misha came back out to the balcony, a glass of his own in his hands. He pressed in beside Jensen, shoulder and thigh against his. Jensen stroked his spine, enjoying his warmth, the architecture of his muscle and bone.

“So about how much do you think the settlement would be if I poured this out on... that guy there?” Misha asked, nodding down at a tempting bald head walking down the sidewalk eight stories below.

“He'd probably just think, 'Wow, that was a really big pigeon.'” Jensen smiled.

Misha laughed and said, “'Who'd had a lot to drink today.'” He nuzzled Jensen's arm, smiling up at him hugely as Jensen laughed in his turn.

Jensen pulled back and put on a stern face. “Did you plan that?” 

Misha's eyes flicked up to meet his. Jensen had a bet with himself to see if there was any lighting on Earth in which his eyes would not be too blue. He hadn't found it yet. 

“What? No! God, no. Fucking Ty. He poured heavy.”

And then, high on the liquor and each other, they'd just lost it. Jensen turned his face to Misha's hair, breathed in that hippie shampoo, Misha's own salt-and-woodchips scent beneath it, to show he understood.

“Good thing for you, Jared's not around to kick your ass.” He spoke against his temple, his hair against his nose soft as feathers.

Misha snorted. “Remember who broke whose ribs.”

“And remember who broke your elbow.”

“Be fair. You have to admit, he has just the slightest mechanical advantage. How's his sister-in-law?” 

Jensen grimaced and pulled back from him. “They're still waiting. There's some...” He gestured at his temple, “brain swelling. So far, she's holding steady. They're optimistic.” 'Guardedly optimistic,' had been Jared's phrasing. 

Misha nodded and sipped his drink.

“Where's Vicki?” Jensen asked.

Misha stared out over the city a moment and then, shifting his bourbon to the other hand, pointed. “That way. She found a sidewalk artist who'll let West play with his chalk.”

Vicki and Misha's marriage took place mostly in their imaginations, so far as Jensen could tell, and yet, if he called her right now, she probably would say something about West playing with chalk. He believed in higher dimensions and unseen energies, but that level of accuracy freaked him out.

“They having a good time?” 

“Oh yeah.” Misha looked dreamy. “Maison's in a fountain. A guard's about to yell at Vicki. That should be fun for her.”

“That's good... I guess.”

“The best,” Misha agreed, ignoring Jensen's clueless tone, smiling bright. He finished his bourbon and set the glass on the table, then looked at him, his eyes intense, serious. “She doesn't expect me back tonight. Since you were about to ask.”

Jensen grinned shyly down at the miniature people below, blushing, because yeah, he _had_ been about to ask.

“Tell me something, Miss Cleo,” he said, recovering and taking a stiff drink, “since you're so good at this, why don't you hook into Jared and give me up-to-the minute updates?”

Because if there was a dark cloud here, it was the thought of his brother hunched in a too-small plastic chair, nurses tripping over his feet, while he waited to learn whether his wife's heart would break.

“I'm not good at this—that's all Vicki.” Misha smiled the way he did whenever Vicki came up, like she was a religious revelation he was recalling from long ago. Then he shrugged, back on Earth again. “Leaving aside the fact that even if I could, I wouldn't want to... he'd never let me. He's shielded. He has trouble letting in the people he even wants there.”

Jensen nodded, finishing his drink. He hoped it would do something about the nagging voice in his head that said he was a bad person for being here now, happy, loved; he belonged by his brother's side, sharing his pain, lending support.

Misha's eyes on him like two suns, penetrating warmth. The corners of his lips curved up, sly. He took Jensen's empty glass from his hand and set it on the breakfast table with his.

“And that's enough about Jared,” he said. “Sorry. I know you love drowning in his misery, but we're in Rome, widely held to be the sexiest city in Europe, and he is not. I think that's cause for celebration. I'm thinking property damage, hotel maids staging impromptu arias over suggestively stained sheets...” Misha's eyebrows rose. “That would do nicely.” 

He'd insinuated himself between Jensen and the railing as he spoke, his pelvis dragging across his, his hands on Jensen's ass, hard against him.

“Been thinking about this awhile?” Jensen asked. His voice was thick. He'd been thinking of it, too. 

Misha tipped his chin, which was all the invitation he needed. They kissed against the railing, Italian voices like a song heard from such a distance the lyrics became jumbled.  
\---  
Jensen took him to bed and started to undress him, dropping open kisses on each body part as he revealed it: a wet kiss on the inside of each elbow when the overshirt came off, tongue for his navel when the T-shirt came off. Like that. Misha's blood rushed against his lips, a reassuring beat for the song of his life, the brag of his heart in his chest when he kissed it: I am, I am, I am.

Sometimes Jensen's feelings were too large, too much. He coped. He deferred them; he packed them away; he gave them to other people, people he trusted.... This was one of those times. Love lanced through him, so intense he couldn't tell it apart from pain or joy. It couldn't last. Feelings like these never did. They burned until they consumed all the tinder, leaving ashes—ashes that smoldered, perhaps, ready to catch again should more fuel be added, but just as often gone cold and black, bitter. God! His brain! He silently begged Misha to shut up his stupid brain.

Misha heard him. Ever since the night he'd walked into Jensen's trailer and straight in his arms, sucked on his earlobe and rumbled, “Thanks for the song,” everything had been different. He'd always been happy to fuck his brains out, had always liked to flirt and play, but since the song, he finally, at last, believed Jensen loved him, cared for him. Would keep him. He changed, became tender, open... vulnerable. And he listened for him. 

Misha stretched his neck for a kiss, Jensen's lips already swollen and stinging from the ones that had grown increasingly heated outside. Beneath the flavor of bourbon was Misha's own taste, tea leaves and earth. He was over worrying how he craved that flavor; he only knew that he did. He stroked the length of Misha's long throat, his Adam's apple a hard triangle beneath his palm, and Misha gasped into his mouth and thrust against him, his cock, restrained by denim, furiously hard. Jensen pet down his chest, his thumbs skimming small, brown nipples, flat and velvety, over the ridged muscles over his ribs to the softer flesh of his tummy. A stripe of hair stretched from his navel to the waistband of his jeans, springy, softer than Jensen's. Their stomachs pressed together, their hard-ons ground against each other, and what they really needed was for all these damned clothes to come off.

Still kissing, always kissing, they tried to undo each other's pants, tried to help the other undo his own pants, unable to do the obvious and separate long enough to get undressed like adults. Jensen felt fifteen again, fumbling around on the oversized beat-on sofa down in the rec room, the one that smelled of wet dog and corn chips. It was a biomechanical disaster of elbows punching sternums and knees crashing into ribs. Too in love, stupid with it. Misha flushed, rose-red flags on his cheekbones, his lips bitten red and swollen, his neck and chest blotchy with blood beneath his usually sallow olive skin. Eyes glowing blue in the light from the lamps. The sight of him made Jensen bow his head with a rush of exhaled air, socked in the gut. 

They finally managed it, somehow. Jensen whipped Misha's jeans over his head lasso-style to make him laugh, then winged them into a far corner. 

Misha grabbed him around the ribs and threw him under, swirled kisses on his nipples, but that was not Jensen's plan tonight. He'd let Misha drive in the panel—look how that turned out—so, even though Misha was working his way down and that was always an excellent thing, Jensen hooked his leg over Misha's thighs and rolled him back underneath.

Which was worth it for Misha's dumbfounded expression, all dilated pupils and confusion.

Jensen kissed that expression off his face, replacing it with closed eyelids, puffed with arousal, red lips slightly parted and helpless. 

He bent to Misha's ear, bit kisses up the curve, whispered into it, “I love you.”

Misha arced and moaned, his hard-on painting pre-cum on Jensen's stomach to cool and crack.

“I love you,” Misha said, breathless, “fucking God, Jen! So much.”

Jensen bent his head, smiling, but close to pain. Misha said that so rarely. 

He'd said it in the panel, and it had nearly been the end of everything. If Jensen hadn't knocked his dumb face away, he'd've kissed him in front of a thousand screaming fangirls. Right now, he had a hard time remembering why that would be so bad. Wild fantasies streamed through his head: a giant house, the wives and kids tumbling around downstairs, upstairs for them, sexual origami and orgasms. He didn't even know. Just right this moment, the thought of not being with Misha was akin to losing a leg.

“I'm gonna have you,” he said.

The sound that sentence wrung out of Misha would live forever in his fantasies.

Jensen reached for the lube, then thought better of it. He was, essentially, a selfish lover. He laid back and he received. Tonight, he decided, it was Misha's turn.

He went down Misha's body, giving obeisance where obeisance was due, so it took awhile. Misha squirmed when he nibbled down his ribs to give attention to his navel, which was just begging for it, okay, right there in the middle of the little pad of fat he couldn't get rid of no matter how much he ran. Jensen loved it, though, that softness, right in the middle of all that lean, veiny strength; he nibbled and lapped it, just to show Misha how much he loved it. 

Then he took Misha's hand and kissed each fingertip. He watched Misha as he did it, wanted to see if the man would get his message: these hands did good in the world, they built things, they created. They were scarred and hardened by the labor. He nuzzled the palm.

Misha groaned. “Seriously, Jen, if you're gonna top, quit fucking ar—”

Jensen sucked his index finger into his mouth and Misha's last words blurred into a long moan. His eyes enormous, dominating his face as he watched his long finger disappear between Jensen's lips. Jensen nibbled the fleshy angle between Misha's index finger and thumb, left it with a kiss, and then, after he lubed up his fingers, turned his attention to Misha's cock. Misha hoisted himself up on his elbows to watch as he backed down the bed, flushed and hot-eyed. “Yes.” 

He was concrete hard, palpably pulsing with blood. He watched Jensen take the head in his mouth and then flopped back, grunting with the effort it took not to come, but Jensen was careful. He didn't, though he wanted to, lap the little ridge running down the underside of the head; he didn't, though he wanted to, suck it down to the back of his throat. He thoroughly wetted it, though, Misha's precum dissolving like a drug on his tongue.

His slick fingers easily slipped inside Misha's tight channel. Too easily. Misha was loose.

His voice rough, he said, “You better have been playing with yourself.”

“Jealous?”

“Only that you didn't let me watch.” 

That was a lie, and they both knew it. Misha's eyes met his, patient beneath the fever of lust, and he said, giving Jensen the reassurance he needed, “Vicki wouldn't have liked that.” 

Jensen dispelled the suspicion that had spurred him in the first place. It was crazy to torture himself with thoughts of Misha with other men, particularly since he'd agreed to be exclusive once this thing got serious, but his brain was an enemy and did it anyway. Vicki, however, was a different story, an acceptable excuse. The things they got up to in the bedroom would make him spontaneously combust with shame if he ever tried them with Danneel.

He applied lubricant, biting his lips at the cool slip of his hands on himself. Maybe it was the lingering image of Misha beneath some other man, but he couldn't hold back anymore. He positioned himself, thrust inside, gasping as Misha enclosed him in a blast furnace of tight heat. Misha sang out, his hips coming off the bed, flexing around him, his hands clawing at Jensen's ass, drawing him deeper. 

They moved together, warm and slow like pulled taffy. Misha stuttered his name, told him in scattered syllables like loose puzzle pieces how much he loved it. Jensen kissed the words from his mouth, because he wasn't going to last long if he had to listen to that. When he bent to do it, Misha wrapped his arms around his back, his legs around his hips, his hands gentle on him.

Jensen could hardly breathe, couldn't possibly speak. He closed his eyes and let himself be held.


	6. All Hell Breaks Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Convention fic. Incidentally, my first stab at Misha's POV, so it's a little---off.

I. APRIL 18th, 2009  
Jensen said, “Don't sit so straight, you nerd.”

Misha slumped forward in his chair and put his elbow on the small table. “More like this, you mean?”

“No, nothing like that.” Jared sputtered laughter. “You look like a cheeseball. Take a shot, relax. It's not like reporters can smell fear.”

They were in Misha's motel room. Jensen and Jared had decided to help him practice being interviewed, because that would happen, and apparently they feared he'd resort to being himself if they didn't school him first—with, he admitted, good reason. He'd had mikes in his face before, sure, but never in this kind of chaos. This was his third convention, but his first with the Jays, and, as it turned out, Jensen and Jared's presence made all the difference. His first two cons had been laid-back, lightly attended, almost scholastic in feel; this one was half cuddle party, half mosh-pit.

“You have nothing to worry about, anyway. All the hard-hitting personal questions will be about us.” Jared smiled hugely, leaned back and splayed out so his knee bumped Jensen's, who slumped with his elbows on the table by his side. The two men a united front, as always.

Misha slitted his eyes. “Good, so I can tell them all about how you gave Jensen a box of chocolates full of flavored condoms for Valentine's Day.”

“Do not do that,” Jensen said, and the sudden stress in his voice made Misha laugh. “Joking around like that in front of the fans, that's one thing, but interviews go right up the chain, straight to the CW. You gotta be careful.”

He made eye contact and Misha's small laugh whuffled out to a gasp. He hoped Jared didn't notice. It wasn't so much the color of the man's eyes, their clarity, or the Bambi fringe of blond lashes, but the way his gaze always skipped down to his mouth, then lower. It just gave him hell, was all.

He'd talked about it with Vicki, because this, he did not know how to handle. Jensen was attracted to him—of that, he had no doubt—but Jensen was only one part, and not the major part at that, of the actual power couple on the Show. Somehow, this job had stuck, but who knows what would happen if he went on slipping through Jensen's fingers—literally, since he glided away from the touch whenever the man grabbed his shoulder or his hip, slapped his ass, slid his hand down his arm. If he went on rebuffing him, would Jensen low-key support the death of his character on the Show? Or, conversely, if he went for it, would that piss Jared off, with the same result? 

Worrying about this cost him sleep.

But when he brought it up, Vicki had only laughed. They were in bed together, the musk of their just- completed lovemaking hanging in the air. “So he wants you. Who doesn't?” she'd said, licking the salt off his neck, making him shudder. 

She was right. Misha didn't understand it, but people always responded to him violently. Whether they loved him or loathed him, he was a magnet around which people's emotions polarized themselves. 

“Just live with it,” she advised. “See where it goes.”

“Right now, nowhere,” he grumbled.

“Do you want it to?” 

She ran her hand down his stomach, his muscles fluttering in the wake of her touch, to his erection. She wrapped her fingers around it, still tacky with their combined juices.

“Yes, you do,” she purred, and he didn't deny it. She nipped his neck as she rolled her fingers over his head, her thumb stroking hard on the ridge beneath his tip, and he jerked, fucking his hard-on through her fist, sensation jolting all through him. Vicki knew exactly how to touch him.

He wasn't embarrassed. He'd had his first, second, third homosexual experiences at her instigation. Vicki whole-heartedly enjoyed watching him with men, and he whole-heartedly enjoyed the opportunity to sexually dominate without a thousand years of patriarchy in his head calling him an asshole for doing so. Besides, once he'd gotten over the “no breasts” aspect of things, he liked it: sex with men was more a contact sport than a conversation. He could be more selfish, less vulnerable, and he found that fun. 

“He's dying to get fucked by me,” he whispered in her ear, his thumb on her clit, his long fingers inside her, stroking her G-spot with a certainty born of long familiarity. She writhed, her breath breaking, turned on as hell, as he'd known she would be. 

“And you like that,” she husked out in response, ever the psychologist. 

“Fuck yes I do,” he growled. “God, Vicki, if you could see him.”

“I have seen him, and I don't blame you,” she said, breaking away, laughing; “I watch the Show.”

“No,” he said, because she wasn't getting it, “I mean the way he is with me. The way he looks at me. He swaggers around and oh fucking god, I know he's huge, but he wants to take it.”

“And you want to give it,” she said against his mouth, before kissing him deeply and swinging her leg over his hips, mounting him for the second round. 

Misha arched into her slick heat with a ragged groan, pleasure seeping like slow sap through his nerves.

“Don't you dare shut up,” she sighed against his mouth, her lips vibrating against his. “Tell me.”

With a sensation like stepping off a roof, he groaned, “I dream about fucking him,” before he drove into her so he couldn't say any more, because he hadn't even admitted this to himself, and yet, here he was. But Vicki just gasped in open lust and ground down on him, flowed over him, her sweet tongue twined with his. He pushed her upright, onto her knees, and followed her so he could run his tongue beneath her breasts, suck her nipples. Tension coiled in his groin, up his spine as she rode him, flowing in his arms, a wick of life that by some miracle had decided to cleave to him, skin glass-smooth and molten hot against his.

And at the same time, as though his admission had opened some lewd door in his head, Vicki's curves morphed as if by alchemy into big shoulders, male musk, full lips shining with spit wrapped around the base of his dick, forest green eyes rolling up to stare into his, shocked and awed and obedient. The fantasy sent a crest of pleasure through him that had him rocketing up into her, shoving her hips down on him. 

She whispered between confetti kisses, “So what do you fear?”

What did he fear? Her reaction? He had it, heat flooding ecstatic around his cock, her wetness running between his thighs. Vicki was last person on Earth to tell him what he could do with his body, just as he could not tell her what to do with hers. 

Jensen's reaction? The pupils of his eyes blown enormous, his cock pressed hard as a gun-butt against Misha's hip when he put his back to the wall, that first flash of angry confusion changing to lust, to pleasure. Misha would run everything; all Jensen had to do was receive. At last, he'd get his hands on that enormous cock; even if he were only a shower, that length was still impressive, would be even more impressive hard. Jensen's eyes wide, helpless with need, as he palmed that erection through the denim, no more pretending, no more lies, no more awkward moments after the director called “Cut!... Sweet Jesus, guys, this is a _wide shot,_ ” while he stood so close Misha could taste the strawberry chew he'd eaten twenty minutes ago, his ears burned red, his heated eyes latched on Misha's mouth. 

Jared's reaction? Now, that was something. Jared, brilliant, powerful, and hot-tempered, had ill-defined boundaries, constantly changing. One day he'd be all horseplay and puppy cuddles, and the next, assistant after assistant had to pound on his trailer to flush him out, scowling and cursing, to do his scenes. He'd been better since he met Gen, but he was still unpredictable. He was an exception to the “love or loathe” reaction the rest of humanity had to Misha. His feelings were a foreign country; they did things differently there. So, yes. He feared Jared's reaction. 

“I could lose this job,” he said.

Vicki hummed encouragement for him to continue and, at the same time, wiggled her ass playfully, causing Misha to lose his breath as she undulated around him. 

“Finally... we might be able to have kids... keep this house...” Misha had built this house with his own hands and crafted most of the furniture in it. He and Vicki had lived in cars and garages and on friends' floors during its construction. He wasn't going to give it up easily. 

“We need this,” he said, suddenly serious, pulling back to meet her huge, black eyes. “I'm not gonna fuck us over, Vicki, not just so I can get laid.” 

“You don't always have to be the responsible one,” she said. She slowed her grind, attenuating his pleasure, twisting each word into him in time with her hips.

“When we drew lots at the beginning of this relationship, responsible's not the one I drew, I know,” Misha said. “But I'd do anything for you, Vick. Anything. And that goes the other way.”

“So that means you'd not do anything?” She grinned, amused, and then her own arousal took over and she sped back up, stoking him, her pussy clasping and sucking at his cock as he gasped and gripped her and started to lose his hold on the world. 

“Let the future take care of itself,” she said, the words broken as her brain and her body separated, her body striving for its resolution even as she tried to tell him what he needed to hear. “Don't stop yourself,” she stammered. “Don't get in your own way.”

Well, considering that Jensen seemed incapable of moving past helpless jerkoff fantasies, Misha could agree to that. “I won't,” he promised, and arced up to her again to snatch one final kiss, his stomach dropping and his body melting as his orgasm pulsed through him and into her, insistent, undeniable.

“You with us?” Jensen asked. 

Misha shook his head to clear the vivid recollection. Where had that come from, anyway? Jared stared at him with one eyebrow raised, looking like he wanted to whip out a tricorder and measure his vital signs. Misha had a semi from the memory, but it's not like either of the Jays could see it, so he shifted in his chair to make himself more comfortable.

“There. You got it. That's how to sit,” Jensen said, snap-pointing, sitting back.

Misha grinned, wondering if he should let Jensen know he'd only been trying to keep his jeans from choking out his chubby. If Jared weren't right fucking there, he would definitely have said the thing. Jensen's expression changed a little, his eyelids lowering, as he caught the undercurrent to Misha's smile and reacted to it, even though he couldn't name it.

That was something he hadn't admitted to Vicki. Fucking with Jensen was a lot of fun. It was probably a shitty thing to do, but after putting up with the Jays' bull all day, unable to strike back in any meaningful way, rendering Jensen incoherent with frustration was one of his few consolations.

So he said, “You're telling me I should always leave myself room to expand,” with a little stress on that last word as he held Jensen's eyes.

Jensen got it. He smiled, his interest kindling, but Jared either didn't or felt like pretending he didn't. “Don't expand too much,” he said. “I know you can't help going off on...” he waved a hand, “... tangents, but try to keep it here on Earth, if you know what I mean.”

“Sure,” Misha said, breaking what was developing into a heated eye-fuck with Jensen to raise an eyebrow at him. “You, Jensen, trailers. Got it.”

Jared's eyebrows lowered as he assessed Misha's tone for seriousness. Misha grinned again, trying to keep the challenge out of it and failing. The two of them had circled in this cliche dude-bro alpha display ever since Misha got on set. If Jensen didn't insert himself, it always came down to this: who was wittier, who was faster on his feet, who made Jensen laugh the hardest. If Misha weren't dead certain Jared was straight, he'd say they were in a sexual competition, and at first, he'd truly wondered: but no. Jared wanted Jensen by his side, not as a sexual partner, but because they both had something missing in their psychology, some critical Jenga block that kept the whole edifice from tumbling down. By some lucky accident, they'd found that in each other, and Jared was, understandably, possessive.

Yet another reason to keep this thing on a leash. If Misha were missing a Jenga block, he'd found it in Vicki when he was sixteen years old, and he didn't need to get in the middle of someone else's codependent relationship, no matter how it was structured. 

Jensen watched the interplay, torn between “business as usual” and “somebody stop them.” Misha met his eyes again, and for an instant, his mind curled open the way it always did with Vicki, letting him read Jensen's thought as clearly as words printed on a sheet of paper: _Seriously? Would it kill the two of you to get along?_

_We're just playing. Don't worry_ , he replied silently, testing, and watched Jensen's eyes fly wide. 

Interesting.

Immediately, though, Jensen turned to Jared and said something, so low Misha didn't catch it, and the tentative contact severed as though an iron door had dropped between them. Misha kept watching him, warmed, a little frightened, but mostly just sorry. Vicki had suffered miseries before she learned to manage being an empath in this world of loud brains. Jensen couldn't possibly know that the reason he kept getting sucked into other people's moods, imitating their body language, their ways of thinking bleeding into and staining his own, was because he had that talent. How awful for him.

And he used Jared to shield himself off, which made sense. Jared had one hell of a shield. 

While this new information explained some things, it wasn't his business, so Misha hauled his attention back to the matter at hand. Jared, who took Jensen's whisper as a sign of victory, rearranged his face into a big-brother expression. “Next on the agenda is trick questions.” 

“Okay, so this is how they'll try to screw with you, all right?” Jensen said. “They ask you something, seems innocent enough, but you get five words into your answer and you realize you're about to spoil an upcoming episode. Usually those kinda questions—”

“---are about props, set dressings, returning guest actors, stuff like that,” Jared said. “So if someone starts asking you about the art department, you know they're trying to get you to reveal a spoiler. Here's how you handle it—-”

Jensen repositioned his chair to face Jared more squarely. “Oh, so Mr. Give It All Away's gonna tell Misha how to handle a spoiler question? This, I gotta hear.”

“Dude, that happened _once_. Let it go.” He flicked Jensen's shoulder with the backs of his fingers. “Listen, Misha, this shouldn't be too hard for you, since you never shut up. What you do is, start talking about all the set design, all the props, praise the hell out of the art department. Go back like five episodes and talk about what they did with the wallpaper....”

There was a hand on his knee.

Misha's already limited ability to pay attention to what Jared was saying went right out the window. Jensen took advantage of his new position at the small table to pat Misha's thigh. Light taps. Could be played off as friendly, or at least it could until the final one, after which Jensen left his hand cupping Misha's knee.

And, all right, then. Misha could play, too. He slumped down in his chair, his legs tangling with Jensen's and Jared's under the table (Jared defended his space with a thump on his shin that almost distracted him from his strategy, but that was a pretty strong “almost”). His movement forced Jensen to move his hand or else his shoulder would have been pushed back, revealing what he was doing to Jared, still talking with only a frown for what he saw as Misha being a brat, with the end result that Jensen's hand wound up high on his leg, almost on his crotch.

Misha grinned at Jensen's bashful blush, the man's lips stuttering through a silent word he couldn't read. But any thought that Jensen was an innocent pawn of his masterful game evaporated when Jensen purposely wiggled his pinkie finger in the crease between his thigh and his groin. Hell, Misha shouldn't even be able to feel it, the caress was so tiny and there was so much denim in the way, but all his blood shot down to the pit of his stomach anyway. Jensen had to feel the swelling, the heat, because he smiled, “So there, motherfucker,” written all over his face. 

Jared said, “Oh, for god's sakes. Fucking—Jay, really?” 

Jensen snatched his hand away. “Just wanted to see if he'd break,” he lied smoothly. Jared probably didn't know Jensen had just been all but palming what was now a very insistent erection, but he knew enough, and he had an epic bitchface over it.

“What you were saying wasn't that interesting anyway,” Jensen went on, grinning. His green eyes flicked over to gauge Misha's reaction, proud of himself, triumphant. 

Misha swallowed, completely undone.

Jensen Ackles wanted on his dick: proposition confirmed.


	7. Love in a Distant Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misha's in Jacmel, Haiti. Jensen is home, and lonely.

I. JUNE 13th, 2013: JACMEL, HAITI  
*Txt me when u land*

*Miss u*  
*No dying*

The hotel in Jacmel had WiFi, pools, and air conditioning, which surprised some of the volunteers, who'd apparently expected tarps and latrines. When open warfare very nearly broke out over someone's use of the phrase “third world country,” Misha decided Tumblrites were a breed apart. Half of them lived in such a self-imposed police state they could hardly breathe without apologizing for their oxygen-exchange privilege; the other half self-identified as “random,” “awkward,” and/or “off their Ritalin.” 

The two sides drafted a bipartisan political system and began to engage in espionage with a speed he found breathtaking. Government: just add young people. What he wanted to know was, where did they find the energy? It was hot—-even for Haiti; even _the Haitians_ were complaining—-and so humid, the minions wailed about their frizzy hair and got distracted by other people's damp shirts. They spent all day mixing concrete and cleaning grit off of tiles and still had time to wage guerilla wars comprised entirely of other people's secrets.

All in all, this had been a long day. Misha's cell didn't get any bars on-site, and he'd only had time to dash off a quick “I landed” to everyone at home before he'd had put out a dozen conflagrations, both interpersonal and acts of God. 

As he stripped off his sweaty, disgusting clothes, his phone made its first date with the hotel's Wi-Fi.

*Did you actually die?*  
*Nothin on the news*  
*HAHA Ur death didn't even make the news* 

*U must be dead since u haven't texted me back*  
*And if u aren't, Ill take care of that*

Just as Misha was about to respond, his message center updated again with a text from Danneel:

*call this THING and DEAL WITH HIM i needto bREATHE*

*It's only what you deserve* he texted her back. Relenting, he added, *Tell him to hold his octopuses. I'll call him as soon as I shower.*

*FUCKING SHOWER FAST* came her immediate response. *ALREADY GOT ONE BIG SOBBY BABY AND I DON'T MEAN JJ*  
\---  
Misha reclined on his bed in a pair of boxers and an undershirt, a glass of rum on the night table beside him. The rum had more molasses in its topnote than he generally favored, but it was compliments of the hotel and he was not about to turn down free booze.

Girl-laughter and stomping in the halls. The more adventurous volunteers, with Colin and Jason as chaperones, were off to see what entertainment Port Jacmel had to offer. Regardless of the country, he'd always managed to find the fun, but that was a talent---and a lack of regard for personal safety---that he, perhaps, should not wish upon others.

He hoped they'd see the conditions people lived in outside the resort area without letting it drag them down. He'd told them a story this afternoon which he hoped would prepare them. Last year, he'd stumbled across a group of kids. The quake had left them nothing to play with, but they played hard anyway, some game of their own invention, happy together; he'd never seen such happy children. The moral of the story was, even though there were problems everywhere, it wasn't stupid and it wasn't selfish to seek out happiness. Happiness was, in and of itself, service: you stayed well so you had the strength to help others.

He knew he should go with them, guide them, thank them for their hard work, but no: not today. This was his time. No children, no minions, no shooting schedule, and no active projects except this one. Misha sipped his rum and let it spread its warmth through his body. He couldn't help anyone if he burned out. He was doing exactly as he should right now. 

His self-talk didn't quite silence the deep-down nag calling him an idle bum and a terrible host whose charity efforts were doing more harm than good, but---

Fuck! It wasn't just Jensen who needed to talk. He really needed to hear Jen's voice. 

That was... not so good; he was allergic to codependence, so what was this all the sudden? Maybe Jen was rubbing off on him. Or maybe it was the fact he hadn't been with him in the flesh since Rome, over a month ago. Between Jen's new baby and his trip to Haiti, they'd both been booked.

The memory of Rome speeded his heart. Misha licked his lips and grinned. Better. Horny was always better than needy. 

*Just a reminder: you have only yourself to blame for what's about to happen* he texted Jen, and then he called him. 

“What's about to happen?” Jensen asked right away.

“Get yourself somewhere useful,” Misha said, because in the background he heard JJ fussing and Danneel saying, “Is that Misha? Go upstairs.”

“And tell your wife I love her.”

Jensen moved the phone away from his mouth. “He says he hates your guts.”

“Same to that slut,” Danneel shot back cheerfully. 

As Jen climbed the stairs, he said, “You took your damn time calling me.”

“Sorry, only building an orphanage here. International rates will knock your cock off on roam. Reasons.”

“Sorry, nothin'. I'm a new dad, I haven't slept right in weeks, I've been sitting around thinking all parasites and earthquakes.... Don't _do_ that to me, Misha.”

They needed to change the subject. Once Jen started in with the anxious-paranoid fantasies, there was no stopping that train without touching him. So Misha asked, “How's the baby?” 

“Tubby. Cute. She craps liquid. Hey, Mish, when does a baby start forming logs?”

“Liquid?” He put on a concerned tone. “They're not supposed to do that. Have you taken her to the doctor?” 

Jensen gasped. Misha grinned even as he felt a little cruel, remembering that, “Holy shit, I'm going to kill this tiny thing through sheer stupidity” feeling all too well. He said, “Well, whatever it is, she's lived with it so far, so it probably won't be fatal.”

Jen exhaled in relief. “To hell with you, ya dick.” He closed a door behind him with a snick. “All right, I'm somewhere useful.”

“This useful spot, does it have a computer?” Misha asked, reaching for his laptop. 

“It might,” he said. “Hey. Speaking of computers. What's that thing you're doing with your kid?”

“Investing in the future support of some therapist's family, I'd like to think. What, specifically, are you talking about?”

“Tho-those--”Jen stammered through laughter, “--cooking shows?”

Oh, he meant “Cooking Fast and Fresh with West.” What had begun as a clever way to answer his parents' demands for footage of their grandson quickly turned into screwing around for its own sake, the way things did. 

“If you can call it cooking. It's more amateur chemical warfare with stoves,” he said, setting them both off. 

Eventually, Misha took a few deep breaths and blotted his eyes with the back of his hand. For God's sakes, they were pathetic. Only been talking for a few minutes, and they already had each other crying. 

“Yeah, this chemical warfare. You let him pick all the ingredients and do all the work, and then you actually eat it? And then you post it!”

“Well, yeah, Vicki won't go near it, so I try. I mean, I don't want West to grow up with a complex about his cooking. It's not always entirely successful, I admit. Not really a project I'd recommend trying with JJ.”

“It'll be a few years before she can do anything but crap the sauce.”

“Eeewww. Dammit, Jen—-how the hell am I supposed to transition from that to the reason I needed to get you alone?”

“You know I like to make that difficult.” Jensen's voice dropped and darkened as he added, “You know I don't need any transition at all.”

Misha grunted, and just like that, the mood changed. They'd laughed, enjoyed each other; the warmth in their voices had crossed a thousand miles, but now? 

“I need to see you, not just hear you,” he said. “Hence the computer question.”

“Yeah,” and that choked affirmation had a powerful effect on Misha. He let out a ridiculous little sound that set him sneering at himself even as he opened up the laptop and went through the rigamarole required to set up a Skype connection. 

When he appeared on the screen, Jensen blinked and said, “You just shower? All dewy. Bet you smell good.” Sadness and loneliness flashed like strobe lights on his expressive face. 

“And you, all dirty.”

“Yeah, I stink,” Jen said. “You don't even wanna know what I've been through today. Just be glad this is Skype and not the real deal, that's all I'm saying.”

“I'll never be happier with Skype than with you,” Misha said, with feeling, and the sadness in Jensen's eyes spoke of his total agreement. 

Then he shook it off, said, “Hang on,” and started adjusting a gooseneck lamp on the computer table for optimum lighting.

“God damn it, Diva Dave,” Misha complained, “all we're doing is jacking off.”

“You mean we're gonna shoot,” Jensen deadpanned. “Shoots need lighting.”

Misha laughed hard. 

“And you need to move,” Jen said in his director voice. “You're backlit n I can barely see you. Nice room, though.”

“Yeah, it's a nice place,” Misha said, shifting himself so the meager light from the bedside lamps fell on his face and body more fully. “The minions were shocked.” 

“Yeah? How are the minions?”

“Nope,” Misha said. “Not talking about them right now. No no no, don't put that image in my fucking head.”

“What, they're not invited to the party?”

Misha felt a flash of anger that he beat back. Jen either didn't understand how much he needed this to be about them right now, or, more likely, this was Jensen's underhanded revenge for not calling him sooner. 

He stared into Jensen's eyes through the computer screen, holding him within his gaze; after a few moments, those green eyes widened, his face softened, and his freckled cheeks, perfectly lit by the gooseneck, blushed shining pink.

Misha kept his expression completely serious. There were two expressions of his against which Jensen had no defense: one was when he laughed so hard his nose scrunched, and this was the other. This was also, not coincidentally, his go-to face for Cas. It was one of the few ways he could make Jensen's life suck a little harder when they shot scenes together.

It kind of sucked for him, too, though, staring so steadily at Jensen's lush mouth as he licked it nervously, the slight arch to his long jaw, every line of him graceful and balanced, as though some nefarious government breeding program had worked for a hundred years to produce a girl who'd win every pageant in the world, and when they'd fucked up and got a male instead, made him an actor. 

“All right, all right, blink, man. I got the message,” Jensen said. “Ixnay on the inions-may.”

“The onions-mayo, too,” Misha said, because he couldn't help himself, and the tension dissolved as they both broke up again. 

After they'd calmed down, Jensen put on some music, no group Misha recognized. Blues fusion. He could deal with that. Jen had tried to use country as a soundtrack exactly once and that session never got off the ground, because Misha couldn't stop quoting “Deliverance.”

He finished his rum and licked the last trace of alcohol off his lower lip. Jensen watched him, his eyes dark, his fingers tapping softly against his mouth. Misha sucked his lower lip, bit it until it stung, scraped it with his teeth until it swelled, flush with blood. 

“Need to kiss you as soon as possible,” Jensen said, his hand dropping out of frame and his eyes fluttering shut as he liked whatever he was doing to himself. 

Misha rolled his eyes. “Hey, Spielberg, all your action's out of frame. Fix your camera situation.”

Jensen grunted and banged around on the other end of the connection, showing Misha confused flashes of the ceiling and a homey-looking print of a cottage hanging on the wall before settling down again. Jensen sat in a rolling computer chair with his legs apart, wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and nothing else. 

He'd pitched a tent that could sleep a family of three. 

All for dumb little Dmitri biting his lower lip, well, well. Misha felt the familiar surge of power as he recognized, yet again, just how much Jensen wanted him. This was a very far cry from the life he'd once imagined he'd lead, but not an unwelcome one. Not at all.

“I like that. I like that a whole helluva lot,” he said.

“Yeah? I can tell,” Jensen said, raising cocky eyebrows. He rolled his palm over the head of his cock through the fabric of his pants, gripped the shaft and stroked it lightly, teasing himself. “Wish you could get your hands on it, don't you?”

Misha snorted softly through his nose, his own palm rubbing circles on himself, worn cloth slipping over stiff hot flesh. “You're right. Hands, plural: I'd need both. Then where would I be?”

“In my mouth,” Jensen said, and Misha cursed as his blood underwent a sudden emergency redirection, pooling heavily in his groin, bringing him to almost painful readiness. 

“You in mine at the same time,” he said roughly. 

“Fuck yes!”

Misha moaned as his body lost cabin pressure, his head lolling back. “You know I won't make it if you keep saying 'fuck.'”

“Felt it. Thrusting into your mouth, you on your knees, staring up at me—-c'mon, Mish, look at me,” because Misha had closed his eyes against the words, the memories, the longing. He opened them, feeling victimized, and there was Jensen's cock, naked and shining over the waistband of his sweats, five inches of shaft and glistening head with more straining against the elastic and his balls lovingly outlined by clinging fabric. The bottle of lube made a rude noise when Jensen greased his fist. With his other hand, he pulled the pants down and over the curve of his ass, popping his hips to work them off, the head of his cock peeping out through his tight grip as he---

“Oh, fuck me,” Misha gasped.

“Oh, I mean to. First chance I get.” Jen's lips reddened, his eyelids dark and heavy, dropping over his eyes. Misha bit his mouth again, not meaning to tease him this time, just because. 

He pet his neck, trailed down over his collarbone and sternum and back again, wishing it were Jensen's fingers, calloused by his guitar strings; those fingers, strong and just a little rough, hanging onto him, gripping him tight enough to leave marks behind. He told Jen these things, his voice ragged around the edges, fingertips trailing fire over his sensitized skin.

Jen said, “Take those stupid clothes off.”

Naked, Misha returned to the bed and the laptop, and, knowing its position gave Jensen the best possible view, slicked himself up with the K-Y. The hotel's air conditioning was not completely victorious over the extreme heat, and sweat bloomed on his skin as he flushed beneath Jensen's lustful stare. He was not a natural exhibitionist like Jen, who loved watching himself in mirrors or on tape, loved being watched as he fucked; no matter how many times Misha did this, he was always a little embarrassed.

Jensen, who knew this damn well, said, “You look so hot right now, Mish,” the pet name sending a shudder of happy pleasure down his spine. “You get so red and hard for me, I love it.”

“Fucking love your voice,” Misha said. It was low and rough, breathless and road-hauled, and it did things to him as he angled his hips and spread his legs so he could access his hole without laying back, because he needed to see Jensen working himself, his big hands on his big cock, one at the base and the other busy wringing his head.

“Get your finger in your ass.”

“Who made you the boss?” 

“Who called who 'his favorite director?' Just do it. I need it.”

“You are my favorite director,” Misha said, and Jensen twitched, his eyes flaring wide in disbelief. 

“You amaze me,” he said, and Jensen's mouth fell open a little, his hands slowing, because hearing himself be praised was more pleasurable to him than sex.

The slick tips of Misha's three middle fingers described tight circles on the sensitive skin of his hole, sending sparks of sensation down his legs and up his spine. 

“You've got an amazing eye and you care and you're---you're---oh, God,” Misha said, because thinking of all the ways Jensen Ackles was an astounding human being was sending pulses of light all through the center of his body. It felt like flying, like make-believe, that someone like him could be so hard in love with someone like Misha.

Jensen sounded pleased and embarrassed, which took the command out of his tone when he ordered, “Shut up the sappy talk and finger yourself.”

Misha moaned and gasped as he pushed his long middle finger inside, encountering almost no resistance. He found his prostate with no trouble and applied the steady pressure he preferred, singing out at the deep, luscious swell of pleasure, which gathered strength like a tsunami born from some undersea eruption. Jensen answered with a helpless grunt of his own.

“Seeing you, hearing you, so fucking hot,” he said, and Misha didn't object to the curse this time. It was just more fuel. 

He surfaced enough to ask, “What would it take for you to eat me?” 

Jensen was panting. “I swear, man, if you were here now, you could have me any way you wanted. Leaving the damn country to go save some friggin orphans when I need you here, what the hell.”

“I'm coming back to you,” said Misha without thinking, and Jensen doubled over, his mouth distorted, the lips curled back in a snarl that could pass for pain.

“ _Fuck_. Fuck, Mish, that was---” The rest of whatever he was going to say shattered into pieces of half-voiced aspiration as he half-fell off the chair, his hips sawing, disorganized, wrecked. He battered the computer table with his fist, jostling the feed so his image blurred, but Misha stared anyway, because this? This. Jensen wrecked for him, because of him, jetting pretty white cum all over his fist and the chair and those poor sweatpants. He was so here for this.

“Taste that for me,” Misha said, and Jensen's eyes flashed up to meet his, shocked wide but---yeah. He'd do it.

“Damn, Mish,” he said, a lost, soft whisper, “I miss you something awful, man.”

Then he swept a glob of his cum off the table and onto his finger and, holding Misha's eyes, sucked it off, rich lips pursed red around the digit.

Misha cried out, panting harshly. At some point he'd put another finger in his ass and he writhed around the pressure, not really pumping into himself but letting his body's movements carry him along the wave. The tsunami was cresting, powerful enough to frighten him, and through it all was Jensen's eyes holding his, his whispers, “C'mon, baby, cum for me, lemme see it. You got mine. You got all mine, I feel so good now, want to see you... want you here with me...”

And then he said: “Come home to me. Come on home,” and the tsunami crashed ashore, wrecking everything Misha had built that defined him to himself: all the pressure, the kindness, the insomnia and the worry and the crying jags when he felt terrible, but the work wouldn't stop. Guilt, because he didn't do absolutely everything he could. The seed of fear, which stated he was wrong to live in this world, needed to earn his place within it. The drive, drive, drive: to more, be more, feel more. 

All gone, turned to light, a pleasure which verged on pain pouring through him, his spine a conduit, every nerve lit up and singing. Sparks exploded behind his eyes; his breathing hurt his throat.

Jensen was shushing him when he came back to Earth. “Good God, that was loud,” he said, his eyes wild. 

“Mmmm,” Misha said, cum and sweat rapidly cooling on his flushed body, too limp to move.

“Your minions, man. How thick are the walls in that place?”

“The nosy types are still out, and the shut-ins are all listening to music while they blog about their first day in Haiti, entries which now may or may not include some guy screaming his head off.” Misha waved a lazy hand. “Fuck everything, Jen. After all that, who cares?”

Jensen put his fingertips on the computer screen. Misha's cock twitched as the light from the lamp shone off the cum still clinging to the back of his hand. 

“And the worst part is? I still want you,” he said. 

“I'm always gonna want you,” Jensen said. 

Misha's heart banged his ribs. He put his fingertips up against his on the computer screen. It wasn't a touch, but it was a connection. Jensen's eyes were soft and dark as forest moss. 

“You are beautiful and I love you,” Misha said to him. 

He blushed. His eyes skittered as though he wanted to look down, but he didn't. He let Misha see how his words hit home.

“You said... you said I amazed you,” Jensen said. He licked his lips. “Well, baby, the fact that you love me is the most amazing thing of all.”


	8. Taking Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DallasCon, 2014, based on the gifset "Misha teasing Jensen"

I. SEPTEMBER 19-20th, 2014: TAKING CARE  
Misha sat in the oversized reading chair in his hotel room, mindlessly surfing Twitter, pretending to read. Words didn't penetrate. Nothing had since Jensen sent his text:

*We're OK for tonight* 

an hour ago, from the airport. Misha hadn't replied. Jen would know he'd read the thing because of the notification screen, and besides, how could he possibly respond? He couldn't compress his feelings into a few lines, and no way would Jensen wade through a wall of text. So he waited.

He didn't look up when his door opened, but when he caught the complex scent of Jensen's expensive soap, felt the subtle heat of him, warm and freshly showered, he rose to meet his kiss. 

Jensen pulled him the rest of the way out of the chair and wrapped his arms around his lower back, pulling him against him. Beneath the harsh commercial mint of toothpaste was his own dark flavor. Misha wanted more of it, but the soft, unhurried way Jensen kissed let Misha know that driving in would be wrong, so he choked back his impatience. After any hiatus, Jensen needed time to reconnect, to touch, to ground himself. Misha understood that. He could slow down.

He drew back, noted the dark circles beneath Jensen's eyes, the lines drawn around his mouth. He'd come straight here from a fourteen-hour shoot in Vancouver. He was exhausted. Truth be told? So was Misha.

The last six months had been brutal. The work never stopped. The Show had to be shot; Misha had his projects; the fans were there, as always, but this year they were angry—at themselves, at the Show, and, fairly or not, at the actors. How many times had all three of them cried from stress and sheer exhaustion? How many panic attacks had Jensen talked himself through, shaking, breath whistling through a throat narrowed to the width of a soda straw? Danneel was a dab hand at redirecting him, but she wasn't always available. Jared was best at it, but right now, with his depression on an upswing, he had himself to look after. Misha was hardly on set any more, and the thought of Jensen suffering alone kept him up at night.

The upshot was, six months was a long time to fight a running battle without a break.

“You didn't sleep on the plane, big guy?” he said, cradling Jensen's jaw in his palm. Jensen shook his head. His cheek rubbed smooth against his hand, and Misha's heart squeezed inside his chest as he imagined Jen racing into his hotel room, showering, shaving, brushing his teeth, his face in the mirror, those marks of age that upset him so much.

Jensen's breath washed over Misha's wrist as he admitted, “I was too excited to see you.”

“Same here,” Misha said, tipping his head to meet Jen's eyes, exerting gentle pressure so he'd raise his head. “Same,” he said, a little more urgently, because Jen's eyes were teary and red.

They stared at each other.

“I don't know, Mish,” he said at last. “I just feel beat, man.”

“I know,” Misha said. He sipped a kiss from Jensen's mouth and then pressed his forehead against his. “Want to just lie down?” 

Jensen's eyes flashed up to his. “We aren't gonna get another—”

“I know,” and holy shit, did he. If he passed this up tonight, who knew when they'd get another chance? But still. This was about more than sex. “Jen,” he said, holding his eyes, “I'm not into necrophilia. C'mere.”

He gathered Jensen to him. Jen hooked his chin over his left shoulder and sagged until Misha felt the strain in his back and legs. He locked his abs and took the weight, because that very looseness told him everything he needed to know about how badly Jensen needed to be looked after. His vulnerability hurt.

“Lie down,” he ordered, and Jensen nodded against his shoulder.

They sat on opposite edges of the bed, took off their shoes, pulled off their shirts, shucked their pants. Jensen changed into shorts he took from his overnight bag. Misha wore a loud pair of pajama pants, blue jersey printed with yellow ducks.

Jensen raised dubious eyebrows. “You serious?” 

“As serious as income tax,” Misha replied, straight faced. Jensen broke up, but even his laughter sounded half-hearted, not the full-throated roar Misha liked best.

“C'mere,” Misha repeated, and pulled back the blankets so Jensen could crawl in beside him. He turned out the light, wrapping them in darkness.

Jensen, pressed hot against his back. The freshness of his soap was almost too strong, and Misha wished he could smell the honest scent of his skin. The man smelled like fresh-cut hay and the ocean; it'd taken him two years to parse out that smell, and he resented having it covered by pricey perfume. What would it take to make the man use unscented soap? An Act of God, probably.

Jensen pressed his lips to the nape of Misha's neck, his arm draped over his waist, his hand petting the curve of Misha's stomach. Misha hated his loose little tummy, but Jensen palmed it like it was something precious. 

He brushed his plush lips against Misha's earlobe. Misha struggled to remain still as his nerves sang. He wasn't playing fair, but then again, he hardly ever did. His fingertips gently stroked Misha's where they rested, loose against the pillow. The contact seared as though he painted his skin with lava.

“I miss you,” Jensen rumbled. “Thanks for talking me down last week.” Now there was a hot, wet touch, his tongue on Misha's neck. Misha's breath caught, but he covered it with a huff. Must not let him know how turned on he was. For one thing, that meant the bastard had won. For another, Jen really did need to sleep.

Jensen's breath fluttered, cool against the wetness his tongue had left on Misha's skin, his long legs, rough with hair, braided with his own. His semi pressed against the curve of Misha's ass, but that, in and of itself, was not a call to action. Jen pretty much always sported at least a semi around him, especially during the kind of dry spell they were in. 

“You're welcome. Go to sleep,” Misha said.

“You wanna sleep?” 

Misha all but groaned. No, he did not want to fucking sleep, but god damn it, he was trying to be the good guy here. “When's the last time you slept, Jen?”

“I think, Thursday?”

“So there. Shut up. Stop _lipping_ me. Go the fuck to sleep.”

The tide of their combined breathing in the darkness. Misha focused on the whisk of air in and out of his nostrils, beginning the routine that got his too-busy brain to shut the fuck up and leave him alone so he could rest.

“You're so far away,” Jensen said then, reversing all his meditative work in five small syllables. Misha knew he didn't mean physically.

“I know. There's not enough time.”

Jensen huffed a short, hurt breath against his neck.

And Misha said, “Sorry.”

“For what?” 

He hadn't meant to bring it up, that's what. “Everyone knows Jared's hanging on by his fingernails.”

Jensen's voice was tight when he said, “What does Jared have to do with anything?” 

“Nothing at all. Completely superfluous.”

“You haven't been shooting.”

“I know.”

“Jared has nothing to do with that.”

“I know, Jen.” 

But shooting didn't have anything to do with why Jensen didn't Skype with him the way he used to. Shooting didn't have anything to do with why he only called when he was desperate with baseless terror and needed to be talked down from his tree. Those things had everything to do with Jared, cracking under the strain of angry fans screaming about canon Destiel—-a situation which was one hundred percent their own damned fault. Those things had everything to do with the conversation Misha would bet his life they'd had, the one in which Jared asked for more support while he battled his demons.

That wasn't Misha's business, though, and he didn't want to fight. He caressed Jensen's fingers, willing him to drop it. “Can we sleep?” he asked, choosing to ignore the pleading undercurrent in his tone. 

After a long pause, Jensen said, “I feel like something's ending.”

Misha squeezed his eyes shut. “It scares me when you say that, Jen.” The pleading tone was no longer an undercurrent, but the actual current, carrying his words along. That need, and Misha's own innate honesty, prompted him to ask, “Do you still---?”

“Always,” Jensen said, strong and definite, the word gusting in his ear.

“Then that's all I need,” Misha said. “Everything's all right. I promise. Go to sleep.”  
\---  
The next morning he woke up to Jensen's face in front of his. At some point in the night he'd turned towards him, and so the first thing he noticed when he woke were the freckles spattering the bridge of Jen's perfect nose.

His morning hard-on nudged Jen's flat stomach. Misha debated whether to wake him for a little something before the day got underway, but a quick glance at his wrist watch made him groan and disentangle himself. He was legitimately late. Jensen, as one of the stars of the show, had the privilege of reporting to panels and photo ops a little later than he, consummate second banana, did. 

Jensen complained sleepily, then rolled over and stuck his face into the pillow. Misha gritted his teeth as he noted the way Jensen's hips flexed, driving his morning wood against the mattress, his ass a perfect sin-cosin-tangent curve. God was fucking with him. It was the only explanation. 

He unlocked Jen's cell phone. Jen had an alarm set, because of course he did. He could be a space cadet at times, but no one could ever accuse him of not being responsible. Misha put the cell on the night table where Jensen would be sure to hear it when it went off, making sure the volume was all the way up. Then he cupped the back of Jensen's skull, soft hair tickling his palm. 

There wasn't time for a shower. He combed his hair (it promptly went all Harry Potter again as soon as he put the comb down, like always), got dressed and booked it downstairs. He was aware, the entire time, of the guys inside his mental sweatshop toiling tirelessly away at something. Some plan was forming, but he didn't dig for it. He'd wait until it was ready to be born.  
\---  
He was talking to fans, smiling, being that guy who played Cas, when the reliable, hardworking folks down in the sweatshop produced an idea. A nice prank to play on Jen. 

Something they could laugh about together later. Or maybe something Jen would want to kick his ass for. Just as good. 

At any rate, a reason for Jen to fucking call.  
\---  
The “stroke kit” was a thing Misha had already arranged as a surprise for Rob, based on an inside joke that came about when Misha first heard Rob's litany of symptoms in October 2013. “Jesus fucking Christ, Rob, those are all stroke things!” he'd shouted, approximately fifteen seconds before hounding the man straight into the hospital. That'd been the right call. Turned out Rob's carotid artery had dissected and thrown a clot, and “stroke things” had been the magic words which saved his life. The fact that it also sounded kind of pervy? Was just a bonus.

Per Misha's request, convention staff had already arranged Rob's wrapped presents on a table onstage.

“Okay, Mastercleanse,” Misha said to Richard, “see all those pretty boxes? All those pretty boxes are for Rob. Your job is to get him to open them, like as soon as possible.”

Richard shrugged. “Sure, no problem,” he said. “Nothing in there that's going to cause a riot or get us all arrested, is there?”

Misha grinned slyly, a grin which became a full smile when Rich went pale. 

Rob was upstage horseplaying with Jared, who picked him up and spun him around so Rob howled laughter up into his face. Jared looked focused, serious, not at all playful. His medication seemed to be working, but his mood was like a wall of dark water behind a dam. Off to the side, Jensen kept a protective eye on him. No wonder the man was exhausted; watching him ride herd on Jared made Misha tired on his behalf. 

“You and Rob stay in front of me,” he said to Rich. “Whatever you do, don't turn around.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, Misha. What are you planning?”

“That's for Jensen to find out. Relax. No one's gonna notice, because you're gonna do such a good job giving Rob his presents.”

Rich blew out and rolled his eyes. “Would it kill you to cool it with the flirting? Forget I asked. That's a stupid question. Look, I'll do what I can.” 

Misha slapped Rich on his shoulder in thanks.

Misha stood behind Rich as he called Rob over to open his presents, speaking to the crowd but with his attention on Jensen, visible from the corner of his eye, watching him from the other side of the stage. He smiled to himself. No matter what, Jen always watched him. And no matter what, he was always aware of it, so really, which one of them was the sadder sack?

Rob opened the box that contained the bottle of lubricant.

“Stroke kit,” Misha said, blurring his words into a sexual pun that the guys on stage quickly and happily echoed. Under the cover of their roaring laughter, he slipped his hand into the gap of his button-up shirt, pushing it to the side to show his unzipped fly, making sure to keep his index finger visible in front. A finger that'd been inside Jen more times than either of them could count, slicked with lube. From the way Jensen's eyes widened and the way he sucked in his breath, the joke found its mark.

But, as it turned out, this weapon took out both sides. Memory (Jensen sucking honey off those fingers as he knelt at his feet, green eyes almost swallowed by yawning black pupils staring worshipfully up at him, oh God) slammed him. His dick got hard as fast as though he were sixteen again. Dammit, dammit, damn it. He continued talking to the crowd, barely aware of what he was saying, focused on reversing what was about to become an embarrassingly obvious hard-on. This was not an easy thing he was attempting, what with Jen staring straight at his crotch, stricken and undone, and _it's all over if you look at him, Dmitri,_ but it was too late to back out now. _Good job, jackass,_ Misha thought with amused chagrin, _you just managed to play yourself._

The lubricant was causing a sensation. Misha, his flank to the screaming crowd, hoped his semi wasn't visible in profile. He let his shirt fall back over it, concealing it, and exhaled in relief. He might have actually gotten away with it.

Jensen was babbling about the lube: “You never know when you might have to get out of a tight situation.”

“Or into a tight— _Oh, shit,_ ” Jared said.

Fuck!

Misha laughed and sought Jensen's eyes, willing him to laugh too. _Take it as a joke;_ he tried to arrow that thought into Jensen's brain, but Jen wasn't open to him. He snapped a hurt and stricken glare at his brother and then gripped a chair, tendons wired tight along the backs of his hands and insides of his wrists. Jared assiduously avoided his eyes, gazing out over the crowd, grinning, snapping his gum, every inch a cheeky motherfucker. 

Jen bowed his head and blinked down at the boards of the stage, his jaw flexing as he tried to regain control.

Damn. It. Misha casually scanned the audience, noted the number of cameras and phones pointed at them. Gifs of this moment would be all over Tumblr by Monday.

No point in getting pissed off at Jared. Even if he weren't medicated to the gills today, which he was, Jared just didn't see what the big deal was about the closet, and he damn sure didn't get why Jensen stayed in it. Jensen's family was religious, but they weren't assholes. He had a place on Supernatural no matter who he was screwing; obviously, Misha was no big secret—there might still be a couple of production assistants who'd be shocked to stumble across them making out.

But Jensen remained closeted---loosely closeted, but closeted---for his own reasons, mostly having to do with the fandom. If it came out—-ha, ha—-that he was screwing Misha and not Jared, as most of them fantasized, the ensuing shitstorm might well paint the whole world brown. 

If only Jen had laughed! The fans would have taken it as a joke! Misha, his stomach sinking, realized this was actually his fault; if he hadn't just been teasing him, he wouldn't have been feeling vulnerable. Right now, though, he looked like he wouldn't mind dropping dead.

As soon as they could gracefully exit the stage, Misha cut to Jensen's side and grabbed his upper arm. “Excuse us a minute,” he said to Jared, who raised his eyebrows. 

“I thought Rob was God around here,” he said.

“Excuse them a minute,” Rob said from a few feet away, answering his cue.

Misha shot Rob a look of pure gratitude and steered Jen to a quiet corner, blocked off by crates.

He'd thought he'd be soothing a Jensen on the edge of a panic attack. He'd thought he'd be apologizing. Instead he found himself spun around and slammed against the wall with a hungry Jen glued to the front of his body, his desperate tongue slicking Misha's lips before he could open for him.

His hand busy at the button of Misha's jeans, not bothering with the fly, which was still gaping undone and good thing, too, because the rapidity with which Misha flashed hard would have been painful otherwise. Misha's stunned surprise didn't last long. He gathered a double handful of Ackles ass and pulled him hard between his legs, grinding against him, Jen's naked erection rutting against the cotton still shielding his own. Jen, going commando again. He liked to live dangerously. Misha laughed around the kiss, messy and needy as it was, more from relief than amusement.

“I oughta kick your ass, you little shit,” Jen grumbled in between wet, open kisses up the sides of his neck.

“You need to make a list,” Misha muttered back. His swollen lips tingled, nearly numb. He wished he could see Jen in the gloom, his cheekbones red and every freckle darkened, lips and heavy eyelids. 

“Damned either way,” Jensen grunted, “I'm gonna enjoy the ride.”

Through his light-headed buzz, Misha was aware of how fucking dumb they were being, heavy petting behind stage for anyone to find, but he couldn't make himself put on the brakes. All the frustration of last night, and the astounding lust he'd felt on stage, and _that memory,_ which was one of the best. He wanted Jen's cock, but Jen was pressed so hard against him there just wasn't room, grinding fast and hard and broken as they panted, their foreheads pressed to each other's shoulders, in between frenzied kisses.

Misha gasped as Jensen grabbed his wrist and stuck his fingers in his mouth, sucked them wet, soft, busy tongue. Sparks of sensation staggered him; the floor went out from under. Jensen pressed him harder against the wall to keep him standing, still grinding against him, the pressure of their hard-ons sliding together so teasingly pleasurable, it nearly crossed the line to pain. 

Once Misha's fingers were thoroughly wet, Jen shoved his hand down the back of his jeans. Misha knew what he was after, and he gave it, sliding his fingers up and down the sensitive opening of Jen's ass before he pressed inside his tight, dry heat. Jen's gasp exploded out of him, mouth hanging open and distorted. Misha ignored his whine of protest as he slid down to the floor, a whine which changed almost immediately to a hollow moan as he took the head of Jensen's cock in his mouth. 

“Oh, yes please, Mish, do that, please c'mon, harder.” 

Words unfurled like a torn flag from his mouth. The things this man said when he was turned on, Misha could not believe. His eyes fluttered shut as a painful desire rocked him.

Harder, he'd said? He did that, speeding the thrust of his fingers, hollowing his cheeks as he swallowed Jensen down. Jen surged, choking him, but he didn't mind, not today. He got dizzy as he ran out of air, Jensen blocking his windpipe, but he'd be damned if he cried uncle; he could take this. 

He didn't have to for long. Jen writhed and battered the wall and came with a harsh, bitten cry, too deep in Misha's throat for him to taste more than vague brine, which was a goddamned shame. He loved Jen's flavor as much as he loved his smell. Hell, he just loved him, and this was one of the few ways he could show it; he could, and would, take care of Jen, every single damn way he was allowed.

Jen gathered him up and set him back on his feet, embraced him with his forehead pressed into the bend of his neck. “I'm sorry,” he said huskily.

“God, for what?” Misha said. 

“I was rough.” Jensen brushed his lips over his skin and Misha writhed against him. Jen was post-orgasmic but Misha was not, and those were not the best two ingredients for cuddling he'd ever seen in his life.

“And I'm made of glass. Poor me, you shattered me,” Misha said. “Shut up and do me a favor, Jensen, jesus.”

Jensen dropped like he'd been shot, pulled the waistband of his underpants down along with his jeans, and Misha once again felt the depth of the stupidity of what they were doing, but along the edge of that awareness was also the knowledge that, hey, this risk they were taking, getting caught with their dicks literally out by some saucer-eyed fangirl or one of the guys with a camera phone? 

Fucking hot.

Jensen sucked him off like he was made of sugar, swirled his tongue around his head in a way that made Misha collapse back against the wall and huff for air, his fingers clenched to keep from grabbing Jensen's head, because Jen hated that. Soft, slow, torture. Misha banged the wall and tried to stifle his cries, which got louder and higher pitched the closer he came, but so damn slowly he really worried he'd pass out before he made it.

Jensen laughed around him. That sadistic son of a bitch.

The hollow, sweet pleasure-pain built in the pit of his stomach, his cock so engorged it felt as though the skin would split, his balls drawn tight and full. Misha threw his head back against the wall to swallow air down his tight throat, creeling, poised on the pained brink, a single silver needle of sensation shot all down his spine.

Then Jensen swallowed him. And he shot immediately as the tight, wet walls enclosed him, working as Jensen swallowed and hummed and swallowed, too many sensations all at once after the extended, frustrating tease. Jen pressed a hard hand against his mouth to muffle his cries.

Misha kissed his palm as all the tension drained from him. 

“See?” Jensen said, releasing him, settling back on his heels to look up at him. “I can take care of you, too.”


	9. *Your Fan Art Here*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know you drew some crappy fan art. We all did. It's part of life. And in 2009, Jensen might have used some of it to flirt with Misha.

I. JANUARY 16th, 2009: FILMING “ON THE HEAD OF A PIN”  
The phone vibrated against his thigh, breaking his concentration. Castiel evaporated. Misha exhaled and shook his head, smiling.

Robert Wisdom, the other actor in the scene, spun away laughing as the director said over the intercom, “Still rolling, guys.”

“Can we take a few minutes?” Misha asked. 

“Get the scene done, you can take as many as you want.”

Tool. 

Misha boxed his irritation and sucked in a breath, resuming his character. The world was different through Castiel's eyes: he looked into things, not at them. Colors flattened; the depth of field increased. Misha slumped into Cas's head-down posture, forgot about his phone and its message. Cas didn't receive texts. Cas received revelations.

The scene went off without a hitch, Uriel and Castiel, two badass motherfuckers, exchanging dire threats. Maybe it was because Wisdom knew he wanted a break, but he locked into the scene, left Misha scrambling to keep up. But then, Misha always felt like he was scrambling. 

Go be an actor. It was a whim he'd had, because he didn't have the personality or the patience to grind away at a drudge job for the rest of his life. By some miracle, he'd found work, but he was always waiting for the giant crook to creep in from the side, snag him around the waist and drag him off.

The next scene was a fight scene, and the stunt guys were already lurking around for it, looking ripped and agile and every inch, “Run along, pretty boys, the real men are here to work.” 

Misha blew them a kiss. Uriel's stunt man, Oliver, caught it and smiled.

He smiled back as he took his phone from his pocket. Fucking finally. Something loosened inside him when he saw it wasn't Vicki who'd texted him, so no car accidents or lost passports today. It turned out to be Jensen, which was just. Weird.

That guy was in Los Angeles promoting his movie, “My Bloody Valentine.” He'd crammed all his scenes into four days' of work to free up his Friday. He'd be gone all weekend. 

While Jensen had warmed up to him recently, they weren't at the shoot-me-a-random-text level of friendship. He'd laughed louder and harder at Misha's jokes over the last couple of months, as though some switch had flipped in his brain. It wasn't a bad thing---Misha hadn't been a big fan of Jensen acting like some high school golden boy ignoring the king of the freaks when he passed in the hall---but such an inexplicable change in demeanor made him wary.

Whatever was happening off-camera didn't change Jensen's acting choices on-camera. Soon after Misha joined the cast, Jensen had taken him aside and said---it took him awhile to get through it all, and Misha, disinterested, had only checked in every once in awhile to see where he was in the flow of his thought and summarize what had probably gone before---that the show was genre, and genre television had a long and venerable history of teasing homoerotic tension, so, hey, he was going to be gazing at Misha in a hot sort of way, and it didn't mean a damned thing.

Misha had filed that under _I won't be on this show long, so who gives a fuck,_ and then God decided to troll him, and the showrunners extended his character arc. Which left him in a pretty position. One did not simply ignore the beauty of Jensen Ackles, and that beauty was giving him “wanna fuck?” stares ten hours a day, every day they shot together. That beauty had also said, explicitly, that it didn't mean anything.

Misha's crush was like a dandelion growing snug in the well-groomed lawn of his sanity. It was adorable, and he didn't necessarily want to root it out because it was so damned cute, but he knew if he let it be, soon the whole yard would be yellow. 

And now this. 

With the sinking sensation that he was totally going to regret this, Misha opened the text.

*Artist really captured the essence of ur character.*

Misha squinted at the phone. Jensen had sent him something that could---if one were being charitable---be called a portrait of Castiel. The head was lumpy like a potato, the forehead bulging, the cheekbones curved like a plastic surgery fail. The chin was pointy enough to be used as a stabbing weapon. 

But the true horror of the picture rested in its eyes. They were enormous, laser-lightshow-blue, with lots of little swarming circles inside them. They made the misshapen thing look hungry for his soul.

 _Okay, sweetheart, you want to go, we can go,_ he thought, grinning. 

One quick Google search later, he had the ammunition he needed.

*Only a flesh wound,* he texted, and sent a picture of a disproportionate Dean crawling along on endless triple-jointed daddy long-legs, gouting an anatomically impossible amount of blood, with the added detail that the artist had lovingly rendered the bulge in the tattered jeans while pretty much saying “Fuck it” to any attempt at the face. This agonal, priapic version of Dean, which really ought to be grimacing or glowering, instead wore the vacant, silly smile of a little old lady watching bluebirds.

*You'll think u were looking in a mirror,* Jensen sent back right away, with yet another terrible, distorted version of Castiel attached. This unfortunate creation had its hand beneath its trenchcoat, obviously playing pocket pool, with its too-large head thrown back at such an extreme angle that its neck must be broken, apparently howling up at the sky.

He had a whole folder of these friggin' things, didn't he? Misha laughed out loud at the image of Jensen scouring the Internet for shitty fan art of Cas. Fine, then. Okay. He now knew what he was doing with the down-time between shots for the fight sequence.

*You seem to like this,* Jensen sent later. Their text war was escalating; of that, there was no doubt. Misha was pretty sure he'd sent the first dick, but Jensen had been the one to start in with the real raunch. This one was Cas---well, by coloration, Misha assumed the man standing was meant to be Cas---getting blown by Anna. Misha smirked at the phone. Yeah, his little avatar on the screen did appear to be liking that. His little avatar's penis was also the same size as its arm. 

*Thanks for the compliment*

*How do u walk with that thing*

*The real question is, how do you not pass out when you get hard?* Misha sent a pencil drawing of Dean on a bed, his hand wrapped around his very large, very detailed hard-on. The art was actually passable; his quick search for “big-dicked Dean spn” hadn't resulted in any truly miserable art.

*Long experience*  
*Long, Hard experience* 

Misha blinked at his screen. Jensen joked with Jared about which of them was bigger, a question Misha was certain they'd already settled between them. Comparing cock size was an age-old male bonding ritual, after all. But this was definitely the first time Jensen talked to him about his dick.

Jensen sent him another picture of Cas, and Misha almost dropped his phone.

It was another porn art, but it was... gorgeous. The artist, with a good eye for anatomy and proportion, had drawn it freehand with pen and ink, resulting in flowing, expressive lines. In this picture, Cas had one hand behind his back, probably fingering his ass, while the other delicately teased a pretty hard-on. His head lolled toward the viewer, his expression both yearning and abandoned to lust, lips slightly parted.

The most important thing, though, and the reason why Misha's hands went numb, was that Cas was naked, and unlike most naked Cas images, there were no wings. 

This could just as easily pass for an erotic image of Misha fucking Collins.

Jensen had this fucking thing on his _phone._

Misha backed into a chair and sat down without looking away from the screen, his mind yammering through a hundred questions. What to do? How to handle this? Did he mean this as a joke? A come-on? Did he think about Misha like this? Did he like this picture? That was the important one. Did he like it, and if he did, how much, and in what way? 

Fuck.

This was---had to be—-a joke. “It doesn't mean a damn thing---” What else was that, but a straight actor setting his queer counterpart on his guard? Misha hadn't gone around handing out pride buttons his first week on set, but he hadn't closeted himself either.

Misha had to revise his opinion of the man: he was actually kind of a genius at messing with people.

Regardless, there was only one true way to handle this. If what Jensen meant to do was fuck with his head, well, he'd just have to fuck back harder.

*You have good taste,* he sent. *What do you think of this one?*

Charcoal, or some computer version of it. Dean in a beat-up armchair, his jeans unbuttoned and unzipped to make room for a surging erection, spreading precum around his head with his thumb while he stared, absorbed, at a magazine. The artist's shading game was on point; Dean's slick head almost seemed to glisten.

*I don't beat off to mags*

Misha's breathing got a little more complicated. His cheeks and ears burned. His dick, happy as always to cause a problem, was causing one, and he flipped the edge of Cas's trench over his lap to conceal it. _I don't beat off to mags,_ he'd said, ignoring the whole “Dean” aspect of things and bringing this out to the real world. To himself. Seriously, what was this?

 _You. Are reading. Too much. Into it,_ Misha told himself. _Stop it._

*U blushing yet?*

Or maybe not. He decided to up the game:

*No. Drooling a little.*

He let Jensen sit with that for a beat ( _so there, asshole, see how you like wondering how I'm taking this_ ), then sent the punchline:

*That picture of me was hot as fuck.*

*lol try this one*

The picture loaded. This one, at least, was clearly Cas; the painting had the trench crumpled at his feet, his tie undone, his shirt partiallly unbuttoned. It was an intensely detailed, almost photorealistic rendering of Cas getting a blowjob from Dean, Cas flushed and gasping, Dean putting in some real work, his hand clawed in Cas's slacks.

Jensen texted, *More where that came from* 

Misha felt pain, tasted blood, realized he'd nibbled a neat little scroll of skin off his lower lip. His heart hammered in his chest. He felt it in his groin, blood pumping him hard.

*You know that's not canon,* he typed, his numb fingers fumbling so badly, only autocorrect saved him. *Unlike this.*

If Jensen wanted to ruin his life, two could play at that game. He sent him a colored pencil drawing of Sam and Dean. Again, the image was rendered with love and care, the two brothers entwined, Sam clearly penetrating Dean. Plaid shirts crumpled on the rumpled bed, denim around their ankles.

*Tell me. I'm curious. Accurate?* he shot off before he could think better of it. 

There was a long pause in which Misha imagined Jensen going through his “I'm uncomfortable” dance. It consisted of him shooting his elbows, shrugging his shoulders, and rolling his neck, as though tension were an actual wire running through his upper body he could snap with the proper sequence of movements.

*How should i know? We're brothers.*

Misha raised an eyebrow at his phone screen. That was... a weird response, certainly no knee-jerk defense of heterosexuality, but it didn't mean anything if Jensen were reacting from Dean's perspective. The whole exchange was starting to frustrate him, a clawing, itchy feeling in the center of his brain. 

*So you haven't read the reams of text from women certain you and Jared are reinacting the Kama Sutra in your trailer?*

*You mean the goss*

*I do indeed mean the goss*

That had been a hell of a thing to stumble across. One of the crew had tossed it out to him, just bullshitting at the catering table: “Hey, if you're not topped up on crazy today, you should check this out.” Misha had scrolled the community for half an hour before going for a run to shake off the creeps. Those people knew where Jensen and Jared went for coffee. They knew when they left Vancouver, and on which flight. They had connections, and they were watching.

The whole thing made him feel intensely sorry for the two men, but also happy he wasn't interesting enough for his every move to be catalogued. He never mentioned his discovery to the boys, though. How the hell could he? “Hey guys, keeping track of what your stalkers are saying about you today?”

Deep down, though, that community had planted within him the seed of doubt. The women of the goss had _so much_ information. Was it possible they were right? Watching Jensen and Jared horseplay, the touchy-feely thing they did, the way Jensen whipsawed from open and soft to stern and closed the moment outsiders came to set, he vacillated, explaining things away one day, raising eyebrows at them again the next. He tried so hard to stay away from the gender-policing and queer-erasing concept of “the ping,” but....

Fuck it. Sometimes, Jensen pinged like a freaking naval submarine.

So, yes, it was just amazingly awesome to be having this impossibly awkward conversation via text right now, as he sat with his uncomfortable hard-on (which had wilted at the recollection of the possibility that Jared and Jensen were railing and, if so, there was a whole corps of anonymous people keeping tabs on it).

*That place is a pit of vipers,* came Jensen's response. *To hell with them.*

Before Misha could respond, Jensen went on:

*As for all their theories*  
*you gotta understand Jared's girl, Gen, Sandy before her*  
*they went straight guano about em just totally rabid*  
*DEATH THREATS!!! TO THEIR HOUSES!!!*  
*and every time J freaked out cos who wouldn't.*  
*i have a hell of a time calming him down*

Misha thumb was poised to send a response, but his mind was a blank. Fortunately his screen lit up again with words before he could throw himself into a text he'd regret.

*J's straight. That's what they don't get. They demand the right to tell him who he is.*  
*For someone like him, always asking himself that q*  
*(who he is, not if he's straight)*  
*its not right. he can't deal with it. i can't either*  
*So I'd appreciate it if you never brought it up to him OK*

Misha waited, but the deluge of text appeared to have dried up.

*Sure, OK,* he sent. *I haven't before and I won't now. Don't worry.*

*OK*  
*I went off the handle a little there, man.*

It was the closest thing to an apology Misha was going to get out of him, and he knew it. He also knew that Jensen had obliquely answered the most important question.

Jared was straight. Jensen was not.

And that was information Misha could live with.

II. FEBRUARY 11th, 2009  
He didn't see Jensen again for almost a month. He flew back home to LA and kept himself busy in between fits of sulking he didn't want to admit he understood: he was a grown man, for fuck's sakes, not some teenage boy, blue because he missed his crush.

Sometimes he opened the text chat log. Sometimes he read it. Sometimes he looked at the pictures. Sometimes he laughed at it. Most of the time he found himself thumbing the icon and then just as quickly backing out of it. This was the stupidest fucking bullshit he'd ever let himself fall into. Jesus fucking Christ, what did it _matter_ if Jensen was queer? In all likelihood, the man had simply misspoke himself in his rage. Even if he were closeted, that didn't make him at all likely to fall for _him._ He'd made it clear he considered Misha some kind of cross between a pod person and an X-File.

But when Misha slept, his lecherous and honest mind lit up with dreams of Jensen flowing beneath him, skin spattered gold, back muscles flexing as Misha covered him, arching up to take his kiss. Vicki and the friends in their circle all got a lot of action that month. She went around a secret smile and a glint in her eye, but she didn't ask. She knew Misha would tell her when he was ready.

Shooting began for 4x18. As Misha stepped out of the airport into the steely Vancouver light, squinting around for the car that would drive him to set, he felt as though he weren't stepping off a curb, but off a cliff. His stomach rocketed to the soles of his feet, where he trod upon it with every step. He'd never been so nervous in his entire life.

The boys were throwing a small rubber ball around the set when he arrived. Jared was trying to do some kind of complicated bank shot off the walls; Jensen, trying just as hard to ensure he didn't succeed. Between the two of them, they were doing a damn good job of destroying the art department's work. One of the set dressers was standing off to the side, her expression a mixture of amusement and rage. A production assistant, spying Misha, zoomed off like a dragonfly, presumably fetch someone with authority to settle the boys down.

Misha was careful to think of them that way, as “the boys,” and he was just as careful not to let his gaze rest on Jensen. There was a small blue bottle on the mantle that had, so far, survived their depredations. He used that as a focus point. See Jensen, think about shoulders, green---quick, where's that bottle? 

He sneered at himself. This was even more pathetic than his projected worst-case scenario. Post-pubertal stress disorder: he was having flashbacks to eighth grade. 

During one of these hey-let's-not-look-at-Jensen-except-oh-hey-seems-we-just-did rounds between Jensen and the bottle, Jensen happened to glance up just as Misha found himself, once again, against his free fucking will, staring at him.

Their eyes met.

The shock of it made Misha raise his chin and swallow. Jensen's eyes widened, but just as swiftly narrowed, his expression darkening as his shoulders rolled. 

“Hey, Misha,” he said, and was his voice rougher than usual? “Welcome back.”

“Misha's back?” Jared pegged the rubber ball at him without warning. Hyperaware to the point where he felt like he'd done a couple of lines, Misha caught it without moving any other part of his body, a feat that made Jared whistle and say, “Nice catch.” 

But it was Jensen's reaction he noticed, the way the corners of his lips turned down, his impressed nod, and he groaned silently at the internal surge of happiness he felt at that response. His soul could be embodied as a man looking out his living room window at a lawn saturated with yellow weeds.


	10. Bridge, Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jensen and Misha's first public neck kiss was in 2011 at ComicCon (just to explain why Jensen is missish about the kiss here).

I. NOVEMBER 22th, 2009: FILMING “THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME”   
Jensen glanced into the Impala's side mirror yet again. That lopsided nostril always drove him nuts. He picked at his hair. 

“Seriously?” Jared drummed his knuckles on the Impala's hood. “I'm gonna put a mirror on the lid of your coffin. What's with all the preening?”

Jensen's eye snagged on Misha, gliding into the makeup trailer to have his hair gelled. He didn't glance their way, Jensen in the driver's seat with his legs draped outside the open door, Jared lounging against the hood, but they both watched as he climbed the steps and disappeared inside. 

The thing about Misha? He couldn't keep from corpsing to save his life, and he wasn't what you'd call a classic beauty, but he caught the eye and held it. The dude could be talking about what he had for breakfast and you'd still be entranced. Even exhausted, ashen, bags under his eyes, he crackled with caged energy.

But Jensen couldn't talk about that, so he played it off, grooming his hair with exaggerated care. “Day one thousand working together, and I'm still prettier than you.”

“And I'm still taller,” Jared said.  
\--  
Misha hadn't been on set for a month. They'd shot each other texts now and again, memes or updates with Danneel in the cc's, and Jensen was vaguely aware Danneel and Misha were in the middle of some furious war about some political situation he didn't give two shits about, but other than that, it'd been all quiet on the Misha front. 

Every time something happened that made him laugh, he pulled out his phone to let Misha in on the joke, only to put it back in his pocket. It didn't have to be weird—-Jared texted everyone, all the time, including Jensen when he was standing right there---but it felt like it'd be weird. Like opening a door better left shut. Just easier all around to put the phone down and maintain radio silence.

He was thinking of that, turning it over in his head again---because, yeah, he'd blown the guy more than once but he wouldn't shoot him a text? Was that just his crazy acting up again?---when firm lips pressed his neck beneath his ear. 

“Hey,” Misha said, slipping into the chair beside him. 

Jensen rolled his shoulders to release the flash of sensation caused by Misha's kiss. Misha regarded him with a grin, sly and warm.

“Don't do that,” Jensen muttered. 

Misha shrugged. “Why not?”

“Cos it looks gay, that's why.”

“And you care.”

“Damn right I care. Crew talks; I got Danneel to think about.”

Misha looked down at the coffee in his hands. He was suited up as Cas with his hair a thistle-brush of wicked spikes. For a moment, he looked serious, intent, and Jensen wondered if he'd decided to nope out of this exchange by going into character. 

He rested his elbows on his knees, poked his chin forward, showing the long line of his neck, and Jensen licked his lips, his tongue dragging slow. Misha glanced at him, caught that lick in the gut with a sharp inhale, his eyes narrowing, pupils flaring as he focused. And what was funny about it was, he could still be in character. 

And, like Dean, Jensen's eyes dropped to his long fingers, wrapped around that coffee cup, fingertips flushed red with its heat. His throat ached. He swallowed.

Okay, it was official. He was not gonna make it through today _at all._

“I am careful, whether you believe that or not,” Misha said at last, and Jensen snapped his eyes back to his face, guiltily banishing all thoughts of warm-fingered handjobs. “Keep in mind Danneel is my friend. Keep in mind also that my job is on the line. Keep in mind thirdly that I'm not an idiot, or at least I wasn't the last time I checked.” He shot a side-smile at Jensen. “There might be some residual brain damage from that last time we went drinking.”

Jared had taken them out and gotten them falling-down, puking-guts drunk. It was an embarrassing memory for everyone involved.

So Jensen said, “We don't talk about that.”

Misha chuckled and straightened up in the chair. “Yes, better not.” 

“But seriously, don't do that. We're not like that. Friends don't do things like that.”

“Could've fooled me,” Misha said. Then he slashed a hand through the air. “Whatever, Jensen. I won't argue if you want to skip the flowers.”

He looked down and sipped his coffee. Jensen smelled it. Heavy cream in a quad shot, that was Misha's drink. 

Speaking quickly to cover a twinge of pain he didn't understand, he asked, “Can I have some?” 

Misha raised an eyebrow and handed it over. 

Jensen held his eyes as he raised the cup to his lips. Misha's expression turned helpless as Jensen sipped, his lips were Misha's lips had been, tasting what Misha tasted. The creamy coffee, hot like Misha's mouth would be. 

Oh, hell. He was doing himself exactly zero favors, even though all he'd meant to do was get the guy back for that kiss. He passed the cup back and Misha's fingers traced his as he accepted it, making Jensen shake so hot coffee dolphin-jumped from the mouth of the lid and onto his hand. 

Misha's eyes turned feral. He snatched his wrist, glanced around, then brought his hand to his mouth, his soft tongue lapping the spill off the meaty pad beneath his thumb, dragging hot up the back of his hand. 

This was escalating quickly. Jensen sucked in a breath, his groin tightening. 

“Didn't want to waste it,” Misha deadpanned, letting him go. He exhaled, slapped his thigh and stood, drawing Cas's trench around him for reasons Jensen understood all too well. “Let's do some work.”  
\---  
Filming was every bit as painful as Jensen had feared. 

Their usual trolling, standing too close, staring too long, but this was so much worse. Jensen screwed the pooch again and again, unable to keep his eyes off Misha's mouth when Cas had lines. Every time their eyes met, his ears burned. Misha would start a take with Cas's earnest stare and then lose it, spinning away, laughing. The close standing morphed into Jensen brushing Misha's thigh with the backs of his fingers, Misha pressing against his back to look over his shoulder, his pinky resting beside his hand on the table. 

This was unprofessional, immature, and it wasn't like they were alone here, but it was like some kind of physical need. He couldn't help it. The only saving grace was Misha was riding this struggle-bus right alongside him. 

Jared, who'd always taken this nonsense in stride before, glanced between them, his eyebrows raised so his forehead crumpled. It almost worked for Sam in this scene, so the director reserved his caustic comments for Misha and Jensen. 

Eventually, he reblocked the scene so there was a good three feet of space between them, growling at the delay even as they stared at each other, mortified that they were being sent to separate corners like three year olds. And even that didn't really help, because they still had to make eye contact, and all in all, this was the worst torture in the world. 

After yet another agonizing take where all three of them acted like they'd never seen a camera before, Jared grabbed his arm and towed him off to the side of the set.

“All right, give,” he said. “What the actual hell is going on? Because standing there with the two of you? Is like taking a surprise visit to the moon. There's no fucking air there. Like, _what_ is happening?”

Jensen scrubbed his hand over his face to hide his expression as he said, “Look, man, I just don't know.”

He didn't like to lie to Jared, but what choice did he have? They were shooting. Time enough to explain this mess to him after. Granted, that was an explanation that was long overdue.

“Tank this for me, man,” he begged. “Get me an hour to just get it together.”

Jared grinned impishly. “I'm liking this idea. What do you want me to do?” 

“I don't know—-set something on fire, for all I care. No. Do not do that. Just... if anybody can hold up filming for an hour, it's you. I have all the faith, man.”

“You should,” Jared said, grinning, “and I will, because you asked.” He snap-pointed at him, his eyes growing serious. “But later, you need to talk to me. You can tell me anything, you know that. Deal?”

Jensen slapped his shoulder. Ordinarily this sort of favor would call for a hug, but right now? Not so much. 

“Thanks.” 

“No problem.” Jared beamed, the wide, wild puppy smile that usually led to toilet paper strewn all over the house and cherished heirlooms shattered on the floor. “Actually, I've been looking for an excuse to lighten things up around here.”

He loped off. 

For the sake of appearances, Jensen knew he should stand by and at least watch whatever it was Jared was about to do, be seen laughing at it, more shenanigans for the gag reel.   
Then he was yanked backward, pulled by the back of Dean's plaid shirt, even as something crashed in the distance with the sound of the budget weeping. 

“Don't say anything,” Misha said in his ear as he spun him around so Jensen could walk like a regular human being. “I heard all of that and I'm not wasting any time.”

“You sure aren't.”

“Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting?” 

“Thought your wife was the best wife ever.” Jensen was not one hundred percent successful at keeping the bitterness from his voice. He didn't like the constant condom scramble, the dirty double-exposed imagery of some other man in his position. It wasn't his place to police Misha—-they were friends with benefits, not committed to each other at all---but it nagged at him. He dealt with it by not thinking about it.

He could hear Misha roll his eyes, even though Misha's hand was at the back of his neck now so he couldn't turn his head to see. 

“My wife is pregnant, and regardless what you think, I'm not an ass,” he said, giving Jensen a little shove to urge him up the steps to his trailer, following close behind. “She knows and understands about _you._ I'm not bringing some other complication into our marriage when she already feels ugly and hormonal.”

“But I don't make her feel ugly and hormonal?” Jensen turned around to face him as the trailer door closed behind him. “Just me?” 

Misha stepped into his space. Jensen held his ground, staring at his lips, the joint of his jaw with just the barest hint of stubble, the lickable space below it. The rush of blood from his brain to his cock rendered him lightheaded. He swayed towards Misha, the scent of his soap, the heat of him.

“What are you asking me, really?” he asked. “Is this that no-men-but-me thing again, Jen? Because the answer there is no. Not when I only get to have you maybe three days out of the month, that's outrageous. But rejoice, friend,” and he put a little twist on the word that made Jensen squirm, suddenly very much not caring about whether Misha had other lovers, “because this past month I've been following your rules. Vicki's idea, not mine.”

For the sake of his sanity, Jensen chose to ignore the way his stomach leapt at that, but he'd already broken into a shit-eating grin. To cover his ass, he blinked, feigning surprise. “Wait. Did you just call me Jen?”

“Don't get used to it,” Misha said, and then he took his mouth, kissed him hard, his lips chapped rough. It was so unlike Danneel's softness, her mouth like rose petals on his lips, so tender it scared him, made him go slow and gentle to avoid bruising her. That was not an issue here. The contrast made his head spin, everything else falling away as he kissed Misha back, tasted the lingering flavors of coffee and cream. 

They were baffled by clothing, Misha wrestling with his trench, Jensen undoing his belt. He slid his palm up the length of Misha's erection, stiff and hot in Cas's slacks, rubbing circles, even as Misha muttered a curse and knocked his hand away. “Wardrobe,” he grumbled, hot eyes flashing up to his. It'd look fifteen kinds of suspicious if he had to ask for another pair of pants, and oh by the way, he'll be dry-cleaning the first pair on his own dime. 

The thought of it made Jensen laugh, and Misha took advantage of his open mouth to thrust in hard, his long tongue filling it so he had to choose between sucking it or not breathing. He chose the latter, and Misha groaned and thrust against him harder, his hands busy unbuttoning, unzipping.

The sound of the zipper chewing down the teeth of that fly was the most welcome sound on Earth.

Misha yanked at Cas's tie as he herded Jensen back towards the narrow bed. Jensen threw Dean's shirts off in one rumpled heap, the small part of him that hadn't gone insane sending up a prayer they wouldn't wrinkle during their time on the floor.

Misha pushed him down; Jensen, loose-limbed, desire an ache all through him. It just did him in when Misha got like this. He snatched open-mouthed kisses off his neck and chest to hear his breath catch, their cocks sliding together, pressed between their bodies. Jensen spread his legs to give him better access, rewarded by Misha's expression, humble and grateful as it always was when he opened for him. The bittersweet pain that caused him was familiar by now.

“I've been waiting too,” he said. The words came out unvoiced, and if Misha heard them, he gave no sign.

Misha arched up so he could squeeze their cocks in his fist and pump them together, lashes floating closed, his mouth falling open, his skin glowing in the pale light from the window. Jensen's precum slicked them both, his foreskin slipping wet and slick over the tender head of his cock, and he gasped with the feel of it, fighting to breathe. This, this smell, the heat, Misha's beautiful fingers and the things they did, his long moans spiralling higher and louder as his excitement grew, that look on his face when lust enslaved him. He'd missed it, craved it. It was happening now, and it was too much. 

Misha fell forward onto one arm, shaking, his hips working as he drove them together, Jensen's hand there too, helping. He bowed up to kiss him again, gasped alongside his cheek until he reached his ear, took it in his mouth and bit. Misha's cry stabbed out into the world. Their fingers fumbled together, the rhythm breaking, each of them close and desperate and not listening to each other anymore. 

Misha turned his face to his hair, the scrape of his teeth against Jensen's scalp as he silently screamed and shuddered. His cum lashed hot lines on Jensen's stomach.

With a loud, punched groan, Jensen went over the edge. He was childish enough to aim himself so Misha got a good body spray too.

And then there was the frantic clean up, because no matter what Jared had done, they didn't have much longer to play hooky, and they couldn't go back to set flushed and smelling of chlorine. Jensen passed Misha the wet washcloth and turned his back so he didn't have to watch him give himself a GI bath. After a month of not having him, that little interlude was not enough, not at all. He wanted to keep the edge off as long as possible: there were only so many things he could ask Jared to sabotage for their sake. He rubbed cologne on himself, started to pass it to Misha, then stopped.

Well, yeah, that would give the whole thing away, wouldn't it.

Misha froze with his hand half-extended, smiling hugely as the same realization dawned on him, and at the stricken expression on Jensen's face at how close that had been. “Got any others?” he asked. 

Jensen searched the medicine cabinet. “Some lotion. Dani's. Sorry, dude, it's vanilla bean.”

Misha squinted and snorted. “Beats vanilla cum. Give it here.”

Misha left the trailer first, dressed once more as Cas, headed to the makeup trailer to have his hair touched up, armed with the excuse that he'd taken a nap. The ear Jensen had chewed on was still red.  
\---   
When Jensen reentered his trailer, it was to the sight of Jared sitting in the recliner, an open bottle of Scotch on the table beside him. Jared caught his eye and poured a finger into a glass for him.

“The smell when I walked in here, I swear to God I had flashbacks to my college dorm,” he said. “So maybe don't explain anything?”

Jensen took the glass from him and sat down on the sofa. He stared down at the amber liquor. “This one of your specials?”

“Yeah. It's not often I get to toast the death of my best friend's career. Figured it deserved it.”

Jensen snapped his head up to look at him. “What's that?”

“You're fucking Misha, aren't you?” Jared leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs, and twirled his glass between his palms. “How long has that been going on?”

“A few months now,” Jensen admitted. He met Jared's hazel eyes. “World hasn't ended yet.”

Jared exhaled the peaty aroma of good Scotch. “I'm not gonna ask if you thought this through. I know you haven't.”

Jensen grimaced. “It's no big deal. We're just letting off steam, having some fun together.”

“Something like this? Is not just fun, Jay! What possible good can this do for you? For the Show?”

The alcohol loosened Jensen's tongue. “It's got nothing to do with the Show.”

“It does when you're screwing one of the regulars.” Jared shook his head. “Dude, I'm not trying to tell you your business, but I'm worried. You need to lock this shit down, because today? You lost it.”

“Yeah... but that's not gonna happen again.” Jensen shot the remainder of the alcohol in his glass. The booze slammed into his veins with the strength of a train, undoing the tightness caused by the tension in Jared's voice. “I mean, I hear you, but it's okay really, I swear.”

“And Danneel?” Jared asked. “Does she know?”

“You think I'd go behind her back? Have we met? I talked to her about it over the break.”

“You talked to her, but not to me.” Jared, looking hurt, avoided Jensen's eyes. 

Jensen rubbed the back of his neck. “I knew you wouldn't approve,” he muttered. 

“Whether I approve or not is entirely besides the point---it's reckless! You think you can handle it, but what if it all goes bad? And then you still have to work with him? And he's married? And you're gonna be engaged? Like, this situation could not possibly get more complicated. What in the hell are you thinking?”

Jensen had had enough. He set his empty glass down on the table with a definitive clink. “I'm thinking I like it,” he said. “I'm thinking it's not really any of your business. I'm thinking that when we're done with each other, we'll go out for a beer and rehash the highlights and then we'll get back to work with no harm done. Misha's that kind of guy.”

“But you know you're not.” Jared eyed him. “I just need you to be very, very careful with this thing. I don't want this set to go bad, the way that it can. You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

When the leads on 'Dark Angel' started dating, it sent that show into a death spiral it could not pull out of. That was because Michael Weatherby was a douche and a half, and Jessica Alba had gone over the edge ages ago. Jensen didn't even engage with that point, because that wasn't him or Misha, not by miles. 

Jared refilled his drink. “And then there's your family.”

Jensen flinched. 

“They dealt with Austin,” he said, taking the bottle when Jared passed it so he could refill his glass too. “Found a way to explain it to themselves and in the end, no one was the wiser.”

“So you're banking on the holy power of denial to save your ass,” Jared said. “Great. Glad you have a plan.”

“What can I tell you?” Jensen said. “Really. Tell me. What is it you need to hear? I'm being careful. So is he. Today was just.... He hasn't been around awhile, all right? I'm sorry.”

“I knocked over one of the walls of the set with a flying tackle,” Jared said, smiling for the first time. “You should've seen Doug's face.” 

Jensen took down half of his new glass. “You said I could tell you anything. Is that still true? Are we all right?”

Jared blew out, his eyes rolling wide. “I mean, yeah, of course. I'm going to back your play no matter what. Forever, man. Look, I'm sorry I jumped down your throat, it's just---I suspected it, all right, and I really didn't want it to be true. That night we went out---”

Yeah, that night they went out. By the fifth drink he and Misha were pressing each other into walls and breathing from each other's open mouths, dying to kiss, erections like railroad spikes, and every time Jared came gamboling around the corner so they had to fly apart like pool balls ricocheting. 

Jared, surfacing from the same memory, said, “If it's dick you're after, why not get some townie to haul your ashes? Why Misha?”

Jensen looked down into his glass. Why Misha? Damned good question, actually. He liked sex with men, and while he didn't love that truth about himself, it was there and he could deal with it. Still, it wasn't like he checked every dude out. He didn't stick his dick in glory holes or cruise for random sex, that was just gross. Just, sometimes, some guy rang the bell. Misha rang that bell. Rang it 'til it deafened him. 

But he couldn't say something like that to Jared. 

Misha was also a fantastic fuck. Definitely couldn't say that, either.

He settled on a lie. “He's my friend. I trust him to look after this. Some random townie might get a hole in his pocket and sell me out. Misha knows if he messes up, he's out of the Show. Safer this way.”

Jared whuffled a laugh. “That's kind of cold.”

“But still kind of the truth,” Jensen said. He frowned, and reached for the bottle again.


	11. Bridge, Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misha has a new baby and no fucking patience whatsoever.

II. OCTOBER 20th, 2010: FILMING “CAGED HEAT”   
If there was any way to get Jared to stop being an asshole, Misha would love to know it. 

He rolled his eyes to the heavens and sent up a silent prayer to that effect to whatever deity might be interested, because he was staring at his car, the one he needed to drive home to get his four hours of sleep or whatever amount God would let him have, and there it was, standing, useless, on four flat tires.

It was 3 o'clock in the morning. He wanted to cry.

He cleared his throat and took out his cell phone to call a cab.  
\---  
His apartment door hadn't even swung shut behind him when Vicki called, crying. She was at her wit's end with West, who wouldn't sleep unless he was being held, so she'd been pacing their house with him for five straight hours. She put the phone on speaker and bawled. 

Vicki was not a weepy person, but the combination of postpartum hormonal changes, exhaustion, and worry was overwhelming her. Misha, listening to her sob, cried too; if he were there, they could take it in turns to hold West. He could spoon her in bed, prop her up with West on her chest. All three of them could sleep. The memory of the smell of her hair, curling crisp against his nose as they all breathed together, made him yearn to be back home where he was safe and needed and loved.

Eventually, she snuffled herself out. “Come back as soon as you can,” she said. “I love you.”

Misha's heart broke as he guiltily turned the cell phone off, because he really did need to sleep.   
\---  
The script was a joke on God's part. It showcased Castiel, and Misha was just too fucking tired to even care. 

Any other script! Any. Other. Script. He was hardly in most episodes, and the one month he wouldn't've given a flying fuck about that, he had to get all these heavy character arcs. All he wanted was to be home with Vicki and his sick baby, not on set choking back the urge to throttle Jensen and Jared, who, knowing goddamned well what he was facing right now, did everything they could to make filming run late and his life completely miserable.

“Wait til you have kids,” he snarled, after Jared made him blow it yet again. “You think I won't fuck you around, you have another thought coming.” 

“Bring it, dude. I'll be waiting. You haven't won one yet.”

Harsh, but true. Misha's sense of humor didn't really work on Jared. He hadn't found a way to make the man corpse yet, not if he were armed and ready for him. 

He cast a pleading glance at Jensen, who could sometimes be convinced to step in, but Jensen just smiled back like a goofball. Misha losing his shit was one of his favorite Mishas, apparently, and there'd be no help from him.

Misha grit his teeth and threw himself into the next take.  
\---  
Jensen wasn't doing him any favors, but Jensen was also not leaving him alone to stew. Every time Misha turned around, there he was, practically climbing up his asshole. Misha knew his first mistake was he hadn't gone directly to his trailer as soon as he got on set, so this was the man's petty revenge. However---and he felt like he'd earned this one---he _had_ just returned from the birth of his son. Not only was he flush with pride in his wife and new baby, but he also was drained of all energy by the intrusion of that tiny wick of life, who cried at all hours and crapped indiscriminately and was altogether adorable and amazing. He didn't have any energy left over for fuck-buddies, even if the fuck-buddy in question was also his best friend.

“Hey. You. You mad at me?” Jensen asked.

Misha balanced a platter of food in one hand, holding a mug of tea with honey and lemon in the other. His throat hurt from take after take of Castiel's window-shattering growl. Yet another thing to lay at those assholes' feet.

“Why on Earth would I ever be mad at you?” 

Jensen dipped his head and lowered his voice. “You haven't come by since you got back.”

“Hasn't been time.” Misha cut his eyes to let him know whose fault that was. If they could get a goddamned thing shot in a reasonable timespan, he could sleep, and if he could sleep, Jensen could get laid. Which was obviously all he was after, the self-centered prick.

“C'mon,” Jensen said. “We're just messing with you because we're happy for you.”

“This is a fuck of a way to show it,” he muttered, cutting around him, looking for a place away from him to sit. Jensen stuck with him like a tick on a dog, so at last Misha rolled his eyes and the two men settled at a picnic table beneath a tree.

It was an unusually clear and beautiful day. The sun poured over Misha's bare skin like warm honey, but the air snapped cool. It was a refreshing combination, and he wished Jensen would fuck off so he could soak it in, not be distracted by his closeness.

Because there was a thing he wanted from him, though he knew better than to ask. Whenever he talked Vicki through her hysterical worries that West would die, that they were too stupid to have children---thoughts he privately shared, but didn't burden her with, because he wasn't the one going crazy with hormones---he hung up the phone feeling _heavy._ His mental closets and drawers overflowed with joy and pride and worry and disaster; having someone help store all these feelings would be a relief.

The obvious answer was Jensen, but Jensen, from the moment Misha had returned to set and met his eyes, had refused to do any such thing. So, yeah, he was out of humor with the guy. If all Jensen was good for was orgasms and kisses, well, Misha didn't need that right now. What he needed? Was a fucking break.

And of course he couldn't say any of that, so he picked at his salad and avoided Jensen's eyes, squinting instead at the sunlight filtered, orange and red, through autumn leaves.

A touch on his hand brought his attention back to Jensen, stretched across the table, his frat-boy laughing expression gone tender and quiet.

“Hey,” he said. “I'm here, you know.”

“In the sense that you're flesh and blood and breathing, yes, I'm aware of that.” Misha bit down on a forkful of spinach and mushroom and returned to his contemplation of the beauty of creation.

Jensen blew out. “I'm not getting what I've done to deserve this attitude.”

Misha laughed bitterly. Jensen was getting angry at _him?_ This oblivious jackass.

“You really do think the world revolves around you, don't you?” he said. “No, sorry, my mistake: the world revolves around both Jared and you.”

“That's a dick thing to say,” Jensen said. “I mean, excuse me for missing you while you were gone.”

“I was gone having a baby.”

“And we said Congratulations and Mazel Tov when you got back. What more do you want from us?”

“A little respect would be nice.” Misha finally met his eyes. Jensen was glaring, pissed, so he glared back harder. “You think I like working on an hour of sleep? You think it's fun for me to get back to my car and find I can't fucking drive it? I had to sleep in the back the other night because I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't turn on!”

That'd been Jared, again. Somehow he'd gotten ahold of Misha's keys and turned his headlights on. By the time Misha had got done filming, his car battery was flatter than a crow's lunch. The mechanics on set were getting so they had someone on call just to give him a jump.

Jensen blinked and then squinted quizzically. “You slept in the back seat?” 

“Oh, you sweet, innocent child of privilege. Hundreds of thousands of people manage the feat each and every day.” Misha chomped down on another forkful of salad, wishing the crunch of vegetables between his molars were Jensen's fingerbones. In fact, he'd napped, out of sheer existential despair, in the backseat before spending the rest of the night in his trailer, but Jensen frequently needed a reality check, so he kept that part to himself.

To his credit, he looked guilty for a moment before shrugging it off. “Well, maybe you should try not being a dumbass and park further away from Jared's trailer.”

“So I can walk a mile and a half to set? Thanks so much for that tip. Maybe _you_ should try telling your brother,” and Misha hit that word with some serious sarcasm, “to get off my back for a couple of days. I just want to finish this shoot and get back home before Vicki drowns West in the bathtub. Is that _so_ much to ask?”

Jensen winced. “Is it that bad?”

This time Misha relented, because no, Vicki would never do that. He didn't think so, anyway. The unwelcome spike of anxiety was just one more emotion he didn't have the room for. “It was a bad joke,” he admitted, stirring the remnants of his salad with his fork, mining for the last of the olives. “Still, this bullshit? I don't need it.”

“Well, I need something.” Jensen tipped his head in a bid to catch Misha's eyes.

“Yes, I'm well aware,” he said, “and goddammit, Jensen, you're just going to have to do without. Deal with it.”

He rocketed up off the bench, because he couldn't take any more of this conversation, pitched the salad into a nearby trash barrel, and returned to set.  
\---  
It was a testament to just how terrible a human being he really was that worrying about whether he'd just torpedoed his special friendship with Jensen occupied the topmost level of his mind for the rest of the day. 

Misha loathed himself. 

By some miracle, Jared had run out of creative ways to mess with his coverage and resorted to letting out silent but deadly farts. Nothing worse than a bodybuilder's gas, redolent of eggs and chicken and broccoli. The smell was hideous, but Misha could handle it. He got through his takes without any other disruption than his own acrid thoughts.

Even with those blessings, Misha didn't finish shooting until after midnight. He checked his phone as he walked to his car, close to a panic attack wondering what shape it would be in today. He'd moved it after lunch, so he had time to call home.

Vicki answered, sounding brighter. West had finally stopped coughing. Her girlfriend Alicia had come to stay and help her, so she'd gotten some sleep. She wrapped up the status report with, “Everything is fine, for the moment. But you---something's wrong.”

“Just work,” Misha said, scrubbing his hand over his mouth. It'd be impolitic to complain to her about his problems with his lover. “We've been running over a lot.”

“You're lying.”

He cursed how good she was at reading him. “Well... yes,” he said. “It's nothing, though. I don't want to... it's nothing.”

She breathed with him on the other end, their inhalations and exhalations syncing in spite of the distance between them. “I want to dig,” she said at last, “but it's late, sweet. If you get it organized in your head and want to share it, you know how to reach me. I trust you.”

It was what she always said when he held something back from her. _I trust you._ Tears burned his eyes. He was so tired. All he wanted was to lay this on her. On someone. It weighed too much. But she was already carrying the burden of their entire family on her shoulders; he would not be that selfish. 

“You're my goddess and I love you,” he said, trying to keep the sad little boy sniffle out of his voice. 

“I know that already, and I love you, too,” she said. 

She hung up.

As soon as the silence descended, Misha folded to the curb. He sat with his feet in the road and his forehead on his knees and let himself be broken. It was okay that this was too much for him. It didn't make him a failure. All it meant was that, for the time being, he couldn't handle this weight. It didn't mean he'd never be strong enough. 

This was what he deserved for allowing himself to think his feelings could ever matter to Jensen. It was a stupid pit to fall into and he'd known, from the beginning, what a risk he was taking. He'd slept with quite a few men, but he didn't enjoy any of them as much as he enjoyed him. None of them looked up at him with tender adoration. None of them opened for him the way he did. Those looks, those touches, had let Jensen worm past Misha's defenses to some spot no other man had reached---a place where emotions lived.   
And he, idiot and trusting fool that he was, had decided that must mean... something. That when the time came, Jensen would be there to lean on. 

How many times did he have to learn that his worth was measured in his usefulness to other people? Jensen wouldn't gain a thing by being there for him emotionally. That wasn't his role. 

So none of this was unforeseen or unexpected. Still, he felt hurt, he felt surprised, he felt frightened, and he let those emotions be without judging them. Emotions were like weather systems; they swept through him and past him, beyond his control. Even if you ran for shelter from the rain, you still got wet; you might as well conserve your energy and just keep walking to your destination. 

An arm wrapped around his shaking shoulders. 

He stiffened, but Jensen exerted a gentle, towing pressure, pulling him into the curve of his ribs. He made shushing noises against his hair, holding him so Misha's nose was filled with his scent. His cheek pressed against the warmth of Jensen's chest. 

“I didn't know it would be so hard,” he thought he heard him say, but that didn't make sense. 

They sat together like that until Misha was able to pull away and snuffle back the wetness in his sinuses. He blotted his face with the sleeve of his shirt. 

Jensen sat silently, watching him. Misha studied him for any sign of rejection, any pulling away, but his face was calm. 

“Where did you come from?” he asked. 

“I was driving back to see if you needed a lift,” Jensen said. “I thought about what went down today, and fact is, I'm a dick.” He shrugged. “Though I could make up some karma. That's how it works, right?”

Misha laughed a little. “Not exactly.” 

Jensen didn't take his arm off his shoulders. His fingers petted his upper arm with small sweeping motions.

He cleared his throat. “Look, man, whatever else there is between us, you're my friend. And the way I've been? Isn't the kind of way I want to treat my friends.”

Misha nodded but stayed silent, because he wanted to hear this.

“I'm not gonna speak for Jared and I'm not gonna apologize for him either, but I gotta say, on my part, when I heard you say how things were going for you, I should've taken a step back. I was about to, but you flounced off like a rodeo queen.”

Misha husked a small laugh. The memory of the way Jensen's eyes had widened, shocked, when he stood so abruptly suddenly came to him, and he wondered why he hadn't understood before.

Jensen squinted into the distance, his thoroughbred profile screwed up with the effort it was taking him to get this out. After a pause to get the words organized in his head, he went on, “I haven't had a baby. I don't know how that is yet. But when I do have one, I really hope you don't do me the way I've been doing you. I wanted to say that. And, I'm still a dick but... I hope we're good.” He swung his head around then and regarded Misha, not hiding the raw expression of concern in his eyes, his dimples flashing as he frowned.

It was all Misha could do not to kiss him, but he managed it. If they started that now, after all that crying he'd just done, he would fall in love and that'd be the end of it. This was sweet, but the reminder he'd just served himself was still fresh: He could not fully trust Jensen, not like that, not the way he trusted Vicki. 

But he could, and would, let Jensen be his friend. 

So he said, “Your eerily well-timed apology is accepted.”

The night sky was almost purple with stars. Jensen took his arm off his shoulders and took his hand in his.

“Look,” he said, guiding Misha's hand up to point. “There. There. And there. You see them?”

“Orion's belt,” Misha started to say, but Jensen shushed him.

“No. Those are the points of the King's Crown, okay? And there. That's his amulet, hanging around his neck. And that star there? That's his hair. He's got long hair, like Jared.”  
Misha snorted a laugh through his congested nose, because Jensen, being whimsical? Like, were the dead rising or what?

Jensen looked into his eyes. Clear green eyes. Even by starlight they were green, his lashes throwing purple shadows.

“Now you show me,” he said.

Misha scanned the heavens. “Okay...” he said. “Those stars over there.” He cupped Jensen's warm palm in his, extended his finger to point at the Pleiades. “The Great Horshoe Crab....”


	12. A Normal Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluffy PWP *shrug* cos I wanted it.

I. DECEMBER 17th, 2013  
The doorkeeper of Misha's building had never liked Jensen, and the feeling was mutual. The doorkeeper was all pendulous earlobes and scabrous skin. Jensen had never thought he'd need the word “scabrous” outside of Words With Friends matches with Jared, but it was the only one that worked to describe this guy—-he was one scabrous old dude. When he laughed, his lips peeled back to expose steel-gray teeth, dry gray tongue.

Jensen fidgeted and watched pigeons while Mish joked around with him, which he always did. Amongst the doorkeeper's other faults, he also fed the flying rats. Jensen had to admit, as long as he didn't focus on the crap splashed on the cobblestones, they were kinda cute, burbling along, pecking at crumbs, their heads jerking in time with their steps.

Misha palmed his shoulder. “We're going now,” he said to the doorkeeper.

Unfortunately, when Jensen looked around, he and the doorkeeper made eye contact. The old man's eyes were the color and texture of loogies. Jensen shuddered and looked away.

As they exited the courtyard, Misha said, “He thinks you're a shallow prick. He's not wrong.”

“You're the loser who can't do better,” Jensen said against his hair, hugging Mish to his side.

It'd been snowing its face off since yesterday. The sidewalks were clear, but on either side of the salted aisles, snow piled to their shins. The heavy blanket distorted sound, isolating them in a bubble where all he could hear was his and Mish's breathing and the soft hiss of falling flakes. Streetlights turned them gold as sparks, reminding him of the day they met.

His chest hurt. Four and a half years they'd worked this thing, but that first day, he'd had no idea. None. He kissed the crown of Misha's head.

Misha turned his face into his neck, the tip of his nose trailing cold like an ice cube. They were so close that walking was difficult, so Jensen stopped and guided him around in front of him.

“You're frozen,” he said, tugging the collar of his coat tighter around his neck. “I told you you needed a hat and a scarf.”

Mish blinked snow from his eyes. “What if I wanted to be cold so you'd feel even warmer?”

The sap this guy came out with sometimes. Ordinarily, his sarcasm could strip paint off hulls, but he just---The right to free speech did not cover it. It shouldn't be legal.

“I'll give you warm,” he said gruffly. He bent to kiss the cold tip of Misha's nose, warming it with his breath. Then he kissed each quivering eyelid, melting the snow snared in his lashes. Misha sighed, a cloud of breath.

During a phone call a few days ago, he'd asked Jensen what he wanted for Christmas, and Jensen'd replied, “To be normal.”

He'd been in a bad mood that day, tired. The turn of the year made Jared irritable, vulnerable. Anything from fandom wank to an ill-timed red light could set him off. The shooting schedule gave them days off together, at the price of fifteen-hour shoots the days they were on set. Jensen wasn't sleeping well, he missed his wife and baby girl, and he missed Misha. All those things weighed like an anchor, dragging him under.

After a thoughtful pause, Mish had said, “Okay. We can do that. One completely normal day.”

This was that day. Jensen and Jared had been off while Misha shot, so Jensen had spent the day with him---they'd played video games and napped, Jared down with a case of the slows---and came over after Misha wrapped. And now they were walking down to the corner market to buy dinner, the way normal people did. 

Jensen tried to believe that for just one night, he could be a regular guy, hanging out with his boyfriend.

Misha nipped his mouth, the sudden pain making his eyes fly wide. “You're thinking too much.”

Jensen's bottom lip stung. “You heard that?”

“No, but you looked like you were holding in a shit.”

That got him. He staggered back, screaming laughter, and slipped; Misha, smiling, smug, hooked his arm and hauled him up before he fell on his ass. 

He said, “And we're shopping. Remember?”   
\---  
Paper bags rustled as they jockeyed for space in the box kitchen. Jensen bent to put the skewers in the oven while Misha reached over him to load cans into the cupboard.   
This kitchen was a joke, but Misha refused to spring for a bigger place; his only concession to his status in life was to stay in a secured building, if one could call a comm system and one decrepit doorkeeper security. Even his furniture was second-hand. 

Misha set a jar of honey on the counter. Jensen corrected himself: Misha sprang for some luxuries, including ones that really shouldn't be luxuries, like raw honey with the comb still in. Why it should cost three times as much as honey that came in squeezers shaped like bears was beyond his understanding, but it did. 

Curious, he untied the gingham ribbon and unscrewed the metal lid. The honey smelled of clover flowers. He dipped a fingertip in and tasted it, closing his eyes at its floral scent, its complex sweetness.

“I dunno if it's worth fifteen dollars, Mish, but that is some damn fine—”

Misha's eyes had gone dark, watching him. Heat flared between them. Silently he reached around and plunged two fingers in the honey jar.

“Mess,” Jensen said. “Ants,” he said. His eyes felt like they were going to fall out of his head. Mish's fingers shining, dripping honey, the scent rising like the promise of summer.

“Take care of it then,” Misha said, and Jensen groaned thickly. 

He went to his knees and licked the trail of honey off Misha's wrist, Misha's palm, sweet flowers on his tongue. Misha's eyes black with a thin rim of cobalt blue, his lips and cheeks flushing red as Jensen took his fingers whole in his mouth, sucking the sticky honey off. He knew exactly the picture he made and he reveled in it, and in the way Mish began to shake and sway towards him, his chin lifted to show his throat as he stared up at God, eyes reverent and lost. His long moan, broken when he swallowed, and the hard swelling in his jeans, still damp from the snow. Meltwater from the snow in his hair glittered on his temples. 

Jensen ran his tongue between Misha's fingers to catch the last of the honey between his knuckles. At the same time, he rubbed Misha's hard shaft, outlined by damp and clinging denim. He didn't really mean to stimulate him, but it was there and he wanted it, his mouth watering not just from sweetness.

“Jen, stop.” His voice, wrung-out and pleading, made Jensen shudder where he knelt, hips thrusting instinctively. “Damn it, Jen...”

Jensen slowly released his fingers, not letting go of his eyes. Misha was panting. 

“You want to watch a movie on the couch like normal people or not?” he said. His voice had a slight twist to it that told Jensen loud and clear that he was completely okay with ditching their cuddlesome date night, which, of course, only made him want it more. 

So he got to his feet, standing too close to him. His breath washed warm and fast across his mouth, his pupils still yawning dark. He turned away to keep from kissing him, because the secret sun that always shone on them both still poured its heat down, and he knew if he started, he wouldn't be able to stop.  
\---  
They changed into comfortable sweats and arranged themselves on Misha's absurdly large sofa, a hideous thing the size of a pickup's flatbed. It was upholstered in plain beige microfiber, and while Jensen wouldn't be caught dead with this monstrosity in his living room, it was an ideal piece of furniture for cuddling on. 

Misha pressed Play on the movie, and Jensen groaned. “Dirty Dancing? Really?”

“You wanted a normal date night,” he said. “Dirty Dancing, it's almost universally agreed, is a normal date night movie.”

“There's no way I can watch this.”

“But Swayze.”

Jensen grumbled into his scalp, but he was defeated and he knew it. 

“Thought so.” Misha's voice shook with laughter. He pressed himself back against Jensen, his ass socked in the curve of Jensen's pelvis. Jensen found his body's heat, the palpable beat of his heart, reassuring, in some primal way he didn't understand.

It wasn't like he was really gonna watch it anyway. He humped against the dense muscle of Mish's ass right when the bitch sister said, “Butt out, Baby,” and Mish got the joke and laughed.

“Be good,” he said. “I want to watch the round robin. And the maracas.”

“I watched this movie on repeat in eighth grade,” Jensen admitted. 

“Alone, I bet. In your room. With a sock.”

Jensen chuckled. “Color twelve-year-old me with the confused crayon.”

“Knew it,” Misha said. “Nobody can have such a hard-on for Swayze and not like this movie.”

“Wonder what our kids'll get stuck on?” Jensen asked.

Misha sucked in a long breath and said, slow and careful, “Jen, listen. You have permission to just be with me tonight. Okay? This isn't about them. This isn't about---” He gestured in an arc, somehow encompassing the whole world. “This is about us.”

Jensen breathed in the scent of his hair. It was dry now, but the metallic scent of snow still clung to it. He nosed the curving edge of Mish's ear, trying to control his breathing, which wanted to hitch and snag over something like a sob. “The guilt, though, Mish. Just erasing them like that?”

“They'll still be there tomorrow.” He interlaced his fingers with Jensen's and brought their joined hands up to his mouth, brushing his lips over the knuckles. “We aren't going to hell for one night.”

“One night where I met you before I got on the Show. Like maybe when I first hit LA,” Jensen murmured. “We'd've gotten an apartment and I'd've messed you around for a year before I got my act together and admitted I loved you---”

“Happens sooner in this fantasy than it did in real life,” Misha murmured.

“Fewer confounding factors. And we get this place together and, I don't know, work at coffee shops.”

“We wouldn't have gotten work?”

“We'd be out,” Jensen said, speaking against his neck, his lips vibrating against his skin. “Hard to get work as an out actor.”

“Is that what you want?” Misha twisted around so he could look Jensen in the eye. “All things equal, you'd rather be out?”

Jensen stopped and stared at the television for a moment. The pregnant girl in the era before abortion was legal was slumped in a kitchen crying. “Yeah,” he said at last. “If it was just me and you, yeah. I have no idea what I'd do, I mean standing around looking pretty is about my only talent in life, but yeah.”

“We'd starve,” Misha snorted. “My work ethic is buried in Stull Cemetary with an 'I told you I was sick' sign posted over it.”

“That's a damned lie,” Jensen said, petting down his chest, kissing his earlobe. “You work harder than anyone I ever met. I can't believe how hard you work.”

“Who are you to throw around these bald-faced accusations of lying? Watch any of the episodes you directed recently? How about your songs? Your talent beggars me. All I've ever been able to do is make other people do my work for me. I convince, but you produce.”

“You convince people to make the world better,” Jensen said, “just by being alive.” He sucked Misha's earlobe into his mouth, petted his jaw with his fingers when Misha raised his chin off the cushion, turning his face to him for a soft kiss.

“Can we just agree we love each other and leave it at that?” he asked. “I think this conversation might actually be giving me diabetes.”

Jensen laughed and ran his hand down his body. Misha was not fully erect but he was definitely filling, growing firmer beneath his palm. Misha, with a sigh, picked up his wrist and put it back on his thigh. “Watch the movie,” he said. 

“Yes, sir,” Jensen said.

As the fierce and determined collette learned to dance, he brushed his lips over the side of Misha's neck, traced his fingers with his own. Every tiny catch and sigh, every longing little moan, seared like a brand. The long muscles of Misha's back fluttered as he trailed his fingertips up beneath his sweatshirt, softly skimming his belly.

He took his time, relearning Mish's body, the small hard muscles of his arms, his thick runner's thighs. He nipped and softly sucked the smooth skin of his neck, glancing up at the movie every once awhile. Baby was seducing the dangerous, but vulnerable, dance instructor. She kissed along the line of his shoulder-blades, slow, teasing. Jensen traced the tip of his tongue over the hard vertebrae at Misha's nape.

What he wanted was for Mish to lose himself in sensation, to be aware of nothing but him. He wanted to be Misha's world. 

He trailed his fingertips up and down the line of his erection, fully hard now and tenting the soft fabric of his pants. Misha, past playing coy, twisted his hips, silently begging, but Jensen kept his touch soft, tracing the ridge of his head, the big vein along the top. Mish had a pretty prick. It wasn't as big as his, but it was cut and perfectly shaped, pearly pink flushing to rose red. He rubbed circles on it as Misha writhed and moaned.

He freed it to spring thick and hot against Misha's stomach. There was little point in trying to perform a credible handjob dry, and that wasn't his intent anyway. He just wanted to feel it, velvety hot and pulsing in his hand. He ran his thumb up beneath the head and Misha bucked into the sensation, creeling.

It was a little lonely, pleasuring Mish without being able to see his face. His eyes, his expressions, were such a big part of this for him, but his scent almost made up for it, rich and musky as his arousal grew. Jensen popped his hips and used his free hand to pull down his pants, freeing his own, long-neglected hard-on to stamp wetly against his stomach. With a twist, he was between Misha's naked thighs. 

Misha's surprised gasp made him grin. 

“New one on you?” he asked.

“Embarrassing as it is to admit, yes,” Misha said, and he actually sounded pissed.

“You never had an Ivy-League rub before?” Jensen said, reaching over to feel his head beneath Misha's own hard-on, Misha's sack dragging soft across the top. “This is a historic day.” 

“Better not let Jared catch you saying 'a historic.'”

Jensen rolled his eyes. “Not now with him, Mish.” 

Mish tightened his thighs. Jensen wrapped his fingers around Mish's cock, his fingers bumping against Misha's, there already. He sucked his neck, not caring if he left a mark, grinding hard, his breath tripping. 

“You're so wet,” Misha groaned, palming Jensen's sensitive head. The raw lust in his voice, his torn breath, made Jensen shake. Something about this, the furtiveness of it, the shackled motions, brought out a wild, frustrated desire that surged and threatened to break. 

This wasn't about him though, so he slowed down to tend to Mish, nibbling up the edge of his ear, his hand working him, Misha's own precum helping now. Misha arched and fucked his hand when he thumbed the ridge beneath his head.

The sight of him, vulnerable, writhing in his arms, made protectiveness stab deep. Jensen tucked him more firmly against his body and speeded his stroke, using every trick he knew to please him. “I love you,” he rumbled in his ear.

Mish, beautiful, singing scales, incoherent. He hitched himself up to snatch the notes from his mouth and Misha chased his kiss, his long neck telescoping, so, even though it was awkward, he stayed there, kissing him, the spice from the vegetable skewers stinging his mouth like tiny bees. He tore away when he ran out of breath, both of them gasping, words breaking from them only half-voiced: “Feels good,” and “Faster,” and “Close,” interspersed with formerly innocent syllables turned into down and dirty whores.

He was close, too close, so he let Misha take responsibility for the handjob as he palmed the wet head of his cock, back stiffening, hips driving. Time fanned slow as he peaked, then snapped shut, like headlights through the windshield in a car crash, blinding him. He choked, coughed, tried to keep from making a mess on the sofa, his cum spurting hot in the palm of his hand.

He came back just in time to hear Misha, bright red and curled like a prawn, stage an impromptu aria, vowels ringing against the walls of the apartment. Jensen pitied the neighbors; he was always so _loud._

Misha grabbed his wrist. Rolling one blue eye over the curve of his shoulder to make certain he was watching, he licked and sucked the cum off his hand and fingers, soft tongue warm and wet as a washcloth, lapping every drop. Jensen couldn't breathe, his eyes wide, his cock twitching at the man's greed. 

“You taste good,” Misha said by way of explanation, smiling hot and sly.

Yeah, he was going to be the death of him.  
\---  
The buzzing of his cell woke him from sound sleep, and he had to fight to make his eyes focus on the glowing numbers on the screen. 3:12 AM. He quickly thumbed the call active to keep from waking Misha, breathing deep and even beside him. Round two had done him in for certain, but he slept so lightly that Jensen didn't want to take any chances.

Jared's voice, jagged with barely-concealed stress, dragged him the rest of the way to wakefulness: “Hey man, sorry to wake you. Just a heads-up, I'm on my way over.”

Jensen slipped out from beneath the blankets, wincing at the rudeness of the cold wood floor beneath his bare feet. “How far out?”

“About fifteen minutes, maybe? Make it twenty. Gen said she put gas in this thing, but surprise, surprise, looks like she lied about that, too.”

Jensen got dressed in the dark as Jared filled him in. Gen was a good woman, but when she'd had enough, she'd had enough. This wasn't the first time Jared crashed at Jensen's apartment after a fight got out of hand, but it was the first time he'd sent up the balloon and Jensen wasn't there.

Jensen didn't want to imagine his face if he turned up at his place and found it empty. He had just enough time to get back his apartment before he arrived, but only if he left immediately. He didn't even have time to wake Mish; he'd have to shoot him a text on the way over.

“All right, man, see you in fifteen,” he said, and ended the call. 

The lobby was brightly lit by overhead lights, so Jensen used the reflections off the windows to quickly finger-style his hair. Didn't want to walk around looking like a hobo, even if it was 3:30 in the morning. 

The doorkeeper glanced up from his paper to glare at him with runny eyes. Who read papers anymore? When did that dude sleep, anyway? Jensen shuddered in distaste and took out his cell to text Misha:

*Jared sent an SOS. Sorry U woke up alone. Thanks for last night.*


	13. Slipping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three narratives, braided together. This is a painful one.

I. JULY 16th, 2015: AFTER THE WRAP FOR THE SHOOTING OF “THE BAD SEED”  
Jensen climbed the steps of Misha's building, stopping at each rise to look back at the fence blocking the entrance to the courtyard. He patted his pocket for his cell phone, debated sending Mish a message to let him know he was here. Lost that debate. 

He knew this was a mistake, and he was making it anyway. 

He squinted up at Misha's apartment. His lights were on; his windows were open. Mish always left them open. He liked fresh air. He'd wedged a box fan in one of them, set between the ledge and the frame, the screen popped out. Mish rang the black funeral bell for at least three of those things every summer like that. This latest one looked like it was fixing to take the plunge any minute now. It made him smile.

The smile made up his mind, and he climbed the last of the stairs and stepped into the lobby.

His old arch-nemesis, the doorkeeper, skittered out from behind his desk, his posture coiled with wariness, as though Jensen were a robber in a ski mask instead of a tired man in a soft heather T.

“Mr. Krushnic does not wish to see you,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” Jensen asked. “Why don't you get, ah, Mr. Krushnic on down here'n let him speak for himself?”

“No need,” the doorkeeper said. “He said I was to ask for your key the next time I saw you. You're no longer welcome.”

Jensen waved that aside, even as his guts clenched. Give me back my key was way, way down there on the list of things he ever wanted to hear Mish say. “When'd he tell you that? Had to be four, five months ago. Damn, but you hold a memory prisoner, don't you? Call him.”

Had it been five months since he'd last been here? He guessed so. He and Mish had slipped since then, but at conventions, on set, not here. And was he standing here, knowing full well he meant to slip? 

Yes.

His jaw ached with clenching. He sucked in a breath and willed himself to relax. So the fossil wasn't going to let him up. That was fine. He fumbled for his cell.

The doorkeeper shot him a look of pure emnity. “Wait,” he said. 

He picked up the phone on his desk—-how quaint, it was an actual handset-—and dialed, glaring at him all the while. His eyes had either gotten runnier in the months since Jensen had last seen him, or else he'd simply forgotten how horrible they were. They reminded him of his mother's sick Persian cat.

“He's down here,” the doorkeeper said in a stage whisper, and Jensen snorted and swung around, scanning the ceiling. What was he in, some bad spy film? But he supposed he should take heart that 'he' was important enough to have his very own significant pronoun. Meant Mish didn't have some other boyfriend creeping around with whom 'he' might be confused. 

The doorkeeper sighed heavily. “If you're sure.” He said, without looking at him, “Mr. Krushnic said to send you up.”

“Of course he did,” Jensen said. 

The old man watched him with slitted eyes as he strode past the desk, his head swiveling like a Skeksi's on his long, wattled neck. Jensen had just watched that movie with JJ not too long ago, so the image was fresh in his mind.

Mish must have heard his tread in the hall because he opened the door before he could knock, staring down at the floor, his throat working as he swallowed. Jensen leaned against the jamb. 

“Not gonna invite me in?” he asked, attempting charm.

“So now you're a vampire? That's bad news. I'd even say it... sucks.” The godawful pun startled a laugh out of him. Misha finally looked up and smiled. “Hello, Jen.”

The pet name threatened to take him out at the knees, and he entered the apartment with less grace than he would've liked, all but tripping over the lintel. Mish's grin grew bolder as he shut the door behind him. Cheeky little shit knew exactly.

He recovered himself and turned to face him, scuffing his feet on Mish's Persian hall runner. He'd been with him when he bought it from a street vendor, hefting the roll up on his shoulder as proudly as though he'd travelled seven deserts to fetch it. He'd regretted that, all right; they'd spent the rest of the day trading the stupid thing back and forth, Mish unwilling to backtrack to stow it in the car, convinced he'd miss some amazing part of the street fair if he did. 

Damn. He wasn't ready for Mish to be a memory. He stared at him, his hands curled loose at his sides, willing him to... something. Understand him, maybe. Read him, the way he used to.

Misha's smile died. He'd never looked so serious. His eyes were troubled as he palmed Jensen's jaw, thumb rasping over the stubble on his cheek.

“You know this isn't fair. To either of us.”

“Can't help it, Mish.”

Misha closed his eyes against the sound of his name. “Fuck!” he suddenly snarled.

II. MARCH 28th, 2014: IN MISHA'S TRAILER ON SET  
Jared and Misha were in each other's faces. 

He'd seen Jared pissed off before, of course, but Mish? That was a new one. The cords stood out on his neck as he bellowed over Jared, flushed red with veins standing out on his temples and forehead. 

The fight was about that stupid fandom ship, the Dean/Cas thing. Misha's fans had been agitating for it to go canon for months now. What had started as a simple ways-and-means discussion had, on a dime, turned into this.

“They're nothing but bullies and you need to get them in line!”

“I don't need to do jack shit. They have every right to ask for what they want!”

“Ask? Yes. Harrass, stalk, and dogpile? No! No one has the right to demand anything of the people who break their balls for this Show! Especially not some idiot girls who've worked themselves into a frenzy!”

Misha bristled, and Jensen threw himself into the pause in an attempt to head off the inevitable. 

“Mish, think.” He spoke softly, a long-standing habit; the louder and more tense a situation got, the more he pulled back, but Misha swung around to face him all the same. “First of all, what the hell. The Show can't support a gay romance, it'd stick out like shoes on a snake. And second of all, the tactics your fans are using? They're rude. You've been egging this on---lemme finish---and it's high time you took some responsibility. They wouldn't have gotten their hopes up if not for you.”

“Oh, so because I took the time to talk to the fans about something they're passionate about, that's me egging them on.”

“I heard it, man,” Jensen said. He scrubbed his hands over his face, ran them through his hair. “'Just because we don't talk about it doesn't mean it's not true or not there,' or whatever you thought was a good idea to say. You don't think, Mish, and it's gone and bit you in the ass.”

Misha slashed his hand through the air and spun around, shaking his head. 

“Don't put your back to us!” Jared hadn't taken the opportunity to get himself in hand at all, Jensen noted, his stomach sinking. “You started this, and you have to deal with the consequences. You gotta tell them, tweet them, whatever, that this is not going to happen and that's that!”

III. APRIL 4th, 2014: DURING FILMING FOR “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.”  
It wasn't like Jared had taken him aside and said, “Let's make certain Misha doesn't get a line out today,” but Jensen soon realized that was the plan.

Guy Bee, the director, did nothing but murmur remonstrations over the intercom. Even Rosie, the camera guy, got in on it. And Jensen, of course, was right there, going along with it, even as his stomach knotted with anxiety. This thing had missed the “fun” exit three miles back. It was barrelling right down the hazing superhighway and picking up speed.

Sure, it had started out fun. They always messed with Misha's coverage—-it was cute, the way he crumpled—-but eventually Jared would relent and let him deliver his line, or some cosmic alignment would see him through a take without cracking. Not today, though. The only rule was Jared could not visibly mess with him—he couldn't, for example, swat him across the face—but everything else? Fair game. Since Mish was shooting a close-up, Jared was free to pinch his nipples, stand on his foot, drop to the floor and lick his calf, and he did all those things with glee. 

When Misha turned to Jensen for help, he leered and blew him a kiss. 

As Misha grew more and more frustrated, the set sank into a kind of hysteria. People drove down from the studio to laugh at him. Everyone knew someone should stop it. Everyone agreed it was somebody else's job. 

It was, in fact—-and Jensen knew this damned well—-his job. He was the only one with the same amount of clout as Jared, the only person Jared listened to. And yet, if he stepped in the middle of this thing, Jared would take that as a declaration of sides, not just in this, but in the Dean/Cas argument. The wounds from that fight were still bleeding.

And he was on Jared's side about that. As sweet as the fandom story was, in terms of the tone of the Show, it simply didn't have a place. Not only that, he wasn't even a tiny bit prepared for his entire family and hometown to watch him make out with Misha---God knows that would set the screen on fire if it happened. There was no way to even pretend like it wouldn't. And just... no. 

So, really, he had no other choice. Jared was on a mission to remind Misha of his place, and Jensen was there to help him.

I. JULY 16th, 2015  
They did it slow, ghosting touches, both afraid this frail bubble would pop, leaving bitter film behind. Mish was so open to him, Jensen felt echoes where he touched him. Stars in the night sky outside the open window, like grains of salt spilled on a black table. The sweat on their skin tasted like tears. 

II. MARCH 28th, 2014  
“There's the insightful and incisive textual analysis I've come to expect from you,” Mish sneered. He was being a contemptuous ass, and he ignored Jensen's warning glare. “Unlike some people, I pay attention to what the writers are doing. The fans are not making it up, they are not just women in wet panties, this thing is real, it's there, and it deserves our attention.”

“Fine!” Jared shouted. “Play into it, feed it if you want, but you make it clear, so help me God, that it's just you pandering, like always!”

Misha stepped into his space, his head thrown back to meet Jared's eyes. Jared glared down at him. 

Flat, controlled, Mish said, “Having the respect to hold an honest and direct dialogue with fans? Is not pandering. Go fuck yourself.”

“Nice mouth, asshole, and it is pandering when it's encouraging something that is never. Gonna. Happen.” 

“And why not? Because you don't want it?” 

“As a matter of fact, I don't, and don't even start,” Jared said. “It's got nothing to do with any of that special snowflake crap, it's to do with the fucking story. This thing you're talking about goes against everything this Show has been for nine years, Misha! You can't flush nine years' worth of characterization down the john just so you and Jay can fuck on camera. And---sorry, Jay, but I'll sooner go to Hell for real than watch you make a lovey-dovey fool of yourself in front of three million viewers.”

“Naw, man, I'm right there with you,” Jensen said, swallowing. “Mish, listen, this is our own damned fault, okay? You, for talking about it, and me, for.... Well, I know what I did. So the question isn't how do we make the whole Show about this. The question is, what can we do in terms of damage control to contain this thing without betraying the characters?”

He was trying to inject a note of sanity into the proceedings, but from the hurt, stunned look Misha threw him, he'd failed.

“So, to you, this is all just some big mistake,” he said, stuttering as though the words got stuck in his teeth.

III. APRIL 4th, 2014  
In all their long tradition of pranking Mish---which was really just the long tradition of messing with his coverage---they'd never been as relentless as this.

The only other time Jensen felt this bad was back in February, when Jared had nailed him with that pie. It wasn't even a pie, just a paper plate piled high with whipped cream, and Jared hid behind the door jamb when Mish, preoccupied with the ten thousand nagging little tasks of directing his first episode, walked through it. Jared didn't just pie him in the face: he drove that plate into him, through him, and he bloodied Misha's nose doing it. 

Jensen had known damned well it was going to happen. He'd known Jared wasn't going to be gentle, either. It wasn't a spoken thing between them, but when Jared had balanced the plate on his palm and told him his plan, he'd known Mish was gonna bleed.

The hell of it was Misha's smile, afterwards. He always smiled, but just because he smiled, did not mean he was happy. 

I. JULY 17th, 2015  
Birds singing in the tree outside Mish's open window woke him up. 

He'd forgot about the damned birds.

The breeze smelled of leaves. It diffused the funk of their lovemaking, the rubbery scent of lube and the plastic doll-skin smell of condoms. He hated condoms. He threw his leg over Misha's hips and nosed him in the ribs, sucked open-mouthed kisses on his nipple, up his neck, to his mouth, plunged his tongue inside.

“Mornin, handsome,” Mish murmured sleepily. Everything about him seemed too real, immediate, the scratch of his stubble, the taste of his mouth, which was... weird. Jensen was the royal crown prince of “go take a shower and brush your teeth,” but not today, apparently. They wore each other's scent, a thought that socked him right in the gut.

Against his better judgment, he said, “Don't make me go.” 

“Don't you shoot today?” 

Jensen snorted. “If I'm lucky.” 

That set Mish off. Jensen rained kisses down on his laughing face, laughing himself as he kissed his laughing mouth. Sudden tears welled up in his eyes and he broke away to watch the curtains ripple inwards on the breeze, fighting for control, because, crying? What the hell, man. The cracked shadows of branches played along the far wall, smoky gray, black where they intersected.

When he trusted his voice again, he said, “They gimme the day off after I wrap an ep. What about you?”

“Not today,” Mish said. “Early call tomorrow.”

Jensen rolled his head on the pillow to gaze at him, shagged out, his dark hair standing up in curving thorns, eyelids puffy, lower lip still swollen. Beautiful. 

“Do you want me to go?” 

Misha's eyes caught the light, turned some shade of blue he didn't have a name for. 

He bit his lips. “No... but I wish I did.”

II. MARCH 28th, 2014  
“Mistake's a harsh way of putting it,” Jensen said.

Jared snapped, “Call it what it is.”

“Unintentional side effect,” Jensen said, shooting his brother a quelling glance. 

“Whatever. It still doesn't belong in the Show,” Jared said. He paced, shaking off excess energy, and then spun and pointed at Misha. “Listen, Misha, I've been patient with this, but enough's enough. Time for some home truths. You play a side character. You turn up, and you help Sam and Dean, but this manipulative little game you're playing with the fans, to get more screen time, or whatever? It's a shitty thing to do to them, it's a shitty thing to do to us, and it's going to ruin things for everybody, so I'm telling you, right now, in no uncertain terms: knock it the fuck off.”

“I like how, in this paranoid fantasy, I'm some kind of devious mastermind,” Misha said, eyes almost black with anger. “Hate to break it to you, but no. I've just been honest with them about what I think, and I have that right, you sonuvabitch. You two are the ones who dance around and lie whenever the issue comes up.”

“Because what the hell are we supposed to say?” Jared asked, throwing his arms wide. “'Get a grip, you delusional twits?' Yeah, that'd go over great, Misha!”

“Let's talk about something else. Like, what are you so insecure about, you big baby? Do you really think if this happened, it'd somehow kick you off your own damned Show? Turn the thing into triple-x gay porn? Just what hell are you so afraid of, Jared?”

“I'm insecure? I'm afraid? You're after something that doesn't fit, Misha! Just like you've never fit! Just like your character hasn't fit for the last two years!”

“Whoa,” Jensen said, holding up a hand. Jared had this thing he did—he didn't mean it, he couldn't help it—but once he got mad enough, he started scissoring bits of flesh off people. He said things that hurt, not things that were true. 

Misha waved Jensen off, his lips curled back from his teeth in an angry snarl. “He obviously has something to say to me, so let's hear it.”

“I just said it,” Jared said, breathing heavily. “You could walk off this Show and out of our lives and nothing would be different. You aren't nearly as important as you think you are, Misha.”

“All right, all right, put the brakes on your mouth,” Jensen said. “Misha's family. We don't talk like that to family.”'

Misha slashed his hand through the air again. “I'm not part of his family---”

“---Damn straight you're not, you unctuous prick---”

“---so he can say whatever the fuck he wants, and did you just call me an unctuous---”

“Both of you! Enough!” Jensen roared.

His voice echoed off the walls of the trailer into the ringing silence. All three of them were breathing hard.

Jared turned his back on them. “I'm done.”

“He's right,” Jensen said. “This's getting a little too heated.”

Misha just stared at his. He made a visible effort to get himself together and carefully said, “This isn't gonna go away just because we ignore it. We need to deal with this as a united front.”

Jared whipped around to scream, “A united front?”

Jensen found himself between the two men, shouting, “Jared, calm down! Both of you, back off!”

He held them apart, darting glances between them. “This thing ain't gonna happen,” he said to Jared, a thread of reassurance in his voice. He glanced at Misha. “Two against one, Mish, you ain't gonna win it. Now we obviously can't talk about this like rational people, so I vote we drop it.”

Misha opened his mouth, but clacked it shut when Jensen glared. “We're dropping it,” he said to him. “It's not our business. We're just actors,” he said to Jared. “Whether it happens or not, that's up to the guys down south. We're not gonna change a damned thing by screaming at each other, all right?” 

He pushed Jared's chest a little. “Walk it off, brother. C'mon, move those feet.” 

Jared still glared at Misha, but he no longer looked as though he were about to go for him, which was all Jensen wanted. He dove out of the trailer, slammed the door behind him. It was a flimsy door and it clattered sadly on its jamb, not a satisfying boom at all.

“A mistake,” Misha said, slipping out from beneath Jensen's hand.

“Kept you from getting your teeth knocked in, so... you're welcome.”

Without looking at him, Misha said, “Yeah, thanks. I think I'd've preferred the punch in the mouth, to be honest. Get the fuck out of here, Jensen. Go find Jared. Smooth him out.”

III. APRIL 4th, 2014  
Misha opened his door for him, though Jensen didn't know why. He slumped through it, hangdog and miserable. 

“Mish,” he started, then stopped. What could he possibly say? 

When Misha came up to him during the lunch break, maybe looking for an explanation, maybe for some reassurance, he didn't even acknowledge him, just carried on his conversation with Jared like he wasn't even there. That was when the penny dropped; Jensen had felt his flinch. Yeah, he'd had a plan, and that plan was to let Jared know he was on his side, so Jared would let go of his anger. The way he'd had to execute it, though, left a taste in his mouth like he'd been chowing on cow patties. 

Why in the hell had Mish opened his door? 

Misha smiled at him, but Jensen was well-versed in the language of his smiles, and this was not a happy one. 

“Jen,” he said, mocking him.

“Dude,” he said. “You should've answered that door with a punch to my face.”

Misha raised his eyebrow. “Not that I'd ever sink that low, but you're not wrong.”

“I'm sorry, man,” he said. “I am really, really sorry. What happened today wasn't cool, I--”

“Stop babbling,” Misha said. “You want some tea? I'm having tea.”

He would be, wouldn't he? They'd made him blow so many takes, his throat was probably ripped to shreds. Jensen sank into one of the slouchy old chairs around the small table Misha used for tea. He picked them up at flea markets and thrift stores, a completely random assortment: a reading chair upholstered in blue velvet; a low, overstuffed loveseat in a pattern of faded pink cabbage roses; a green-striped cream-colored armchair; a yellow stool. Misha took the stool, hunched over a steaming mug of tea.

Jensen squeezed honey into his and dragged the tea bag through the hot water. Dark orange tannin bloomed, leaving a trail behind like a comet.

Misha regarded him, his expression carefully blank.

“Do you want me off the Show?” he asked. 

Jensen flinched. “What? No! God, Mish!”

“I've been considering it. It'd solve a lot of problems,” he said. “Jared doesn't talk about it, but this thing with us bothers him, and you know it. And Destiel? That's one hundred percent on us; you were right about that.” He shook his head. “Listen to me, making excuses like a coward. It's me, Jen. I divide people. I divide the fans, and I'm dividing you and Jared.”

“That's for us to worry about, though.”

“I'd think so, if you didn't need each other so much.” Misha glanced at him, careful, blank. He was like a white wall. “I'm starting to think my presence on the show is hurting you, and that's not okay by me anymore.”

“Is this because of today? Because of the way we acted?” 

He shook his head. “I've been thinking about this for awhile.”

Jensen reached across the table for him, but Misha, staring down into his tea, pretended not to notice. He drew back. “You know Jared. He's an emotional guy. Just tell the fans what they need to hear, and he'll be fine.”

“No,” Misha said. “I'm not going to lie to them.”

“What lie?” His anger was rising again. He beat it back. “You take all of... us... off the screen, and the writing doesn't support this Destiel thing at all, Mish. What you're talking about would make us the Show.”

“I don't understand why you can't separate acting Dean in love from being yourself in love.”

“Because Dean, at least so far as I understand him, is not in love with Cas!” Jensen sipped his tea so he wouldn't be tempted to thunk the mug down as punctuation. “He loves Cas,” he said. “He loves Cas the same way I love Jared. They're battle-tested, brothers in arms, but Dean doesn't stroke it to the angel in the bathroom. You take me, looking at you, out of it, and I just don't see it in the writing, man. I'm sorry.”

Misha nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That's fair.” He grimaced as he squeezed more honey in his tea. “So you're saying, if this happened, you'd have to be you, in love with me, and you don't want that.”

“Not on screen!” Jensen heard the wrung-out echoes of his voice. “Not for the whole world to see, Mish.”

“I'd never ask that of you,” he said. 

“But it doesn't change your mind,” Jensen said, staring into his eyes. He was still walled off; he couldn't read what was going on inside that head, and it drove him nuts. His head ached. He wanted to kick off the chair and pace, but he controlled himself. “D'you wanna leave me, Mish?”

Misha rolled his eyes. “Don't be a drama queen, Jensen. Jesus. I'm talking about leaving the Show, not you. If there's not going to be anything between Dean and Cas, Cas doesn't have a damn thing to do, and you and I both know it.”

“You give us time off,” Jensen said, grinning.

“Dickbag,” Misha said without heat. 

They were silent for a moment, stirring honey in their tea, sipping it, both gazing off into middle distance. 

“So, this whole thing is about you being bored. You think some new role would be more interesting. Is that about the long and the short of it?”

Misha's mobile mouth flattened in a frown. “It's just an idea. I don't know. They don't put us in scenes together, they don't give me anything interesting to do, and the whole time I'm there, bored off my ass, I'm pissing off psychopaths who only want to see you and Jared, and I'm pissing off my fans, too.... Sure, the money's good—pays for Random Acts, lets me raise my kids. To be honest, that's the only reason I'm still around. That, and the fact that I do see the set-up for the... thing which will not be named.”

Jensen exhaled. That was a hard punch of truth Misha had just served. No wonder the man didn't fist-fight. He didn't need to.

“Well, at least now I know why you're so fired-up about it.” He reached across the table again, and this time Misha rested his hand on his forearm and looked him in the eyes. The expression in them hurt.

“I'll try to get you more to do,” Jensen said. “Something good. Just... please don't leave, okay?” He tipped his head. “I don't think threatening to quit the Show to get you your job back would work a second time.”

“When the hell did that happen?” Misha asked, lost, and Jensen choked on his tea.

Right.... He'd never told him about that, had he? 

Whoops.

I. JULY 17th, 2015  
They didn't actually manage to leave the apartment that day, or even the bedroom, really. Sometime around noon, they ordered Chinese and Misha threw on a pair of boxers to accept the bags from the delivery guy, and they ate it sitting Indian style on the messy bed like teenagers, watching bad daytime talk shows and laughing at the guests.

They messed around, starting and stopping, kisses that lasted for what seemed like days. They washed their sex off under the shower's spray and Misha had him up against the wall, Jensen's hands slipping on the smooth white tiles, and as he came, stars exploding behind his eyes, he never, ever wanted to leave.


	14. A Brief Interlude For A Branding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Misha's clothespinned nipple in the “Love Yourself First” tweet and Jensen's inability to stop rubbing his inner thigh whenever Misha comes up. CW for past self-injury, eating disordered behavior and implied abuse: all that headcanon is based on the transcript of Misha's interview with Aisha Tyler, which you'll have to Google up for yourself. While I didn't intend to draw a link between pain!kink and past trauma, that's how this reads. Before you get pissed off at me, this is more about marking and less about sex.

I. JANUARY 31st, 2013

Jensen shivered when he stepped into Misha's apartment, and not because he had his windows open to the raw Vancouver winter, for a change. 

The apartment flickered with candles, awash in tea-colored light. Soft guitar on the sound system, spare and restrained. No artist he knew—one of Mish's friends maybe. The air smelled of warm wax and fresh bread, with a high, sour note that made him smile; Mish must have tried baking again, with the usual, blackened result. His loaves were always served with the crusts cut off. Still, the scent was nice. Jensen sniffed appreciatively as he wound his way to Misha's far bedroom, even as his nerves twanged alarm. Lit candles, burned bread: fire. Ignition. Searing. 

More candles in the bedroom, and Misha, battered jeans slung low on his hips, standing over one, his expression serious and absorbed as he slapped the grill lighter against his palm. It was obvious the thing was no longer working, and just as obvious Mish had no idea why. Jensen broke into a wide smile, plucked it from his fingers and said, “You're out of fluid.”

Misha's head snapped up. His eyes were always blue. He said, “The fuck did you just say to me?” 

They exchanged smiles. 

“Lit like, what, two hundred candles with it, genius? Uh-huh. Where's your butane?”

“Fuck the butane.” Misha carelessly flipped the lighter from Jensen's loose grip, Jensen whipping around to watch its flight, a paranoid fantasy of Misha's apartment whooshing up in flames bursting full-color in his mind's eye, but all it did was clatter harmlessly into one of the liquid shadows. Misha yanked his face back with hard fingers on his chin and kissed him, insistent, his lips and tongue like hot wet velvet. Jensen clung to his mouth, swaying until Misha wrapped his arm around his waist and took his weight. 

When would this end? He had to get tired of screwing him eventually, didn't he? Would the day come that Misha's taste, his scent, his heat, didn't flash him hard? And what then? Jensen would like to pretend there was nothing between them but sex, and when it died, he'd be free, but that wasn't the truth. He wouldn't be here tonight if it were.

Misha sat him on the edge of the bed and knelt between his splayed knees without breaking the kiss. His palm skated the length of Jensen's hard-on, straining behind his zipper. He surged against him, skin glowing bronze, little brother to the sun. Jensen groaned into his mouth and Misha inhaled it, pressed him into the mattress and covered him. Jensen wanted a mirror to watch the light slide along the muscles in his lover's back. He read them with his hands instead, holding Mish against him, kissing him hard and deep. His live, hot weight on him—-for some reason, Misha's skin was fever-warm---set him trembling.

Misha was undressing him. Jensen rolled his shoulders, dipped and turned to help him, breaking the kiss only when forced. Misha slid down to work on his big snow boots, the laces wet with melt. Jensen bent to help, but, rebuffed by Misha's hard glare, flopped back and let him pull them off to thump into some other dimension, for all he knew. Misha's tongue on his naked sole made him start in surprise, hard lips pressing hot against his cold skin, teeth scraping lines of fire. Golden clouds swarmed on the ceiling, light and heat mingling there like pigments on wet paper. 

“Are you sure?” Misha's voice called him back. He knelt on the floor, strong thighs straining the worn denim of his jeans, holding Jensen's eyes as he finished pulling his pants off. 

“I'm sure.” His voice came out a reedy, unsupported whisper.

Misha petted the insides of his thighs---a more meaningful gesture than usual, even with Jensen's hard-on drooling against his stomach. Misha didn't spare so much as a glance for it, never looked away from Jensen's eyes, and that let Jensen know he was both serious and shit-scared. 

This whole thing was Jensen's idea. Misha had fought him on it every step of the way. Tonight, Misha would mark him: not just with transient suck-marks on his flanks and thighs, but something that would last. 

Jensen hadn't run this by Danneel. Hadn't mentioned it to Jared. This was between himself and Misha, and that, he suspected, rocked Misha's world more than anything else, that he'd decided, at long last, to corral some small thing and call it “ours.”

But this was no small thing. This was serious pain.

This was his idea, but Misha had given it to him. His arms and legs were laced with scars, lines that caught the light like strands of spider silk. 

“Endorphins, before I started running,” Misha said, when he asked. “Stop it.”

Because Jensen couldn't stop tracing them with his fingertips, with his tongue. Misha didn't knock him away, but he watched his absorbed caresses with a bored, half-mystified expression, as though Jensen had suddenly fixated on his fingernails. 

“Looks like it hurt,” Jensen said, frowning. It had been years ago for Mish, but for Jensen, it had just happened, and yeah, it hurt. Hurt that Mish would hate his flesh so much that he'd do this thing. Hurt like Mish had done this thing to him, who loved him, loved his smooth olive skin and hard muscles.

The scars were old—-that was the only saving grace. Old and almost invisible, except for the places where the blade had bit. Those places put him in mind of divots on a golf green, an image that turned his stomach.

“I was just a stupid kid,” Misha said, rolling his eyes, “and it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

The story came out in bits and pieces over the course of months. Perhaps Mish, who lived very much in the now, didn't realize how Jensen saved up each installment and pieced it together. The too-friendly grown-ups. Treats, trust, touches; shelter from the cold. The belief, growing like a bad hangover, that his body didn't belong to himself, but to everyone; that saying “no” was selfish and wrong. In the end, the only way he could claim himself for his own use was to be something nobody would want, cutting, binge-eating.

Jensen didn't like it, but he understood it. He'd grown up looking loose and languid for the shot, and it was all stupid, feigning lust for the camera's glassy eye. His face, his image, belonged to adults, and that could have really screwed him up, the way it did other kids, but he'd dug in deep until he found the place that could not be photographed. That was where he lived, safe and sound.

Mish hadn't known about that place, was all. Maybe he still didn't. When this thought struck Jensen, as it sometimes did, he grappled him close and threw him underneath, screened him from even God's eyes with his own broad back.

He loved Misha. He needed to understand him. So he couldn't stop obsessing over those scars, their causes. Misha, sleeping on couches, on the floors and in the garages of family friends, had grown up with a need to connect at any cost. Mercy changed from an abstraction to something necessary for survival: it was his lifeblood. That knowledge sat weirdly on Jensen, who'd grown up knowing that even if everyone on Earth turned their backs on him at once, he'd go on. So long as Texas was a thing, that long, burned land unspooled beneath that sere sky, he'd go on. 

But Mish didn't have a country. His nation was people, helping and being helped; to reject or be rejected, even if it spared him from abuse, was the same thing to him as exile and death. Jensen couldn't fix that for him—-maybe it didn't even need to be fixed—-but he could let him know that he wasn't alone, and therefore not, as he understood it, dying.

Thus, this bright idea.

It made Misha pale with terror, made his hands shake, but was so, so necessary.

“Are you ready?” Jensen asked now, breaking out of this reverie. 

“I'm never going to be ready,” Misha said, and the sweat on his upper lip testified to that truth.

Jensen's heart squeezed with pity for his fear. “We don't have to,” he said hoarsely. “C'mere.”

But Misha shook his head. “I can,” he said. “I will. If you're sure.” 

“I am sure,” he said, and his voice was better this time. “I still want you to c'mere. Lose the jeans.”

He'd given Mish pain before, at Mish's request. Had pinched and clamped and tied, knowing as he did that it would hurt. Sadism wasn't his kink, but between “yes” and “jabberwocky” was a whole world in which Misha put himself in Jensen's hands. No one else relied on him that way. No one else ever would. Misha's surrender was its own reality, one in which Jensen was totally responsible, totally capable. A god.

In return, he occasionally let Mish tie him up, but he never asked Mish to hurt him, and Mish had never offered. Tonight would be the first. 

“Big leap,” Mish said as he shucked the jeans and pulled him into the curve of his body, speaking against the point of his shoulder. 

Jensen said nothing. There was nothing to say. 

“Sure you don't want to build up to this?” Misha said against his ear. “We could start with something lighter.” His tongue there, tracing up the curve, with a sharp nip at the top that made him jerk.

“Told you this ain't about sex, Mish.” 

Misha's fingers, fine as cameo porcelain, wrapped around his straining shaft; though he couldn't see it, he imagined one eyebrow raised in silent inquiry. Misha's lips, soft on the blade of his shoulder. 

“Ever brand a steak?” he asked, and his voice was harder now. “Because that's what it's going to smell like. With the pain... it might make you sick.” 

Jensen swallowed. “I can handle it.” 

“That's exactly what I don't want,” Misha said. “That tight-lipped Texan thing.”

“What, you want me to bellow like a steer? Not gonna happen.”

“I don't want you to go inside and leave me alone out here,” Misha said, and then his hand was gone, his warmth was gone, and Jensen looked over his shoulder to see Mish seated on the side of the bed. He reached for something on the night table, the candleflames there wavering with the air currents. Jensen half-turned towards him, but Misha's shoulders were straight and still; nothing in his body language screamed a need for reassurance. 

He turned back towards Jensen, something long and narrow in his hand. The shadow it threw across the bedspread was a crazy shape in the uncertain light. 

A steak brand. Jensen had only ever seen one at family reunions, when his uncle stamped the steaks on the grill with an assortment of whimsical shapes. This one was not whimsical at all: the letter “M.” No need to explain what that meant.

Jensen twitched as anticipation lanced through him. The spot he'd chosen on his right inner thigh burned as though it were being seared already. Misha looked over his shoulder, his eyes steady.

“Still want this?” he asked.

“Mish.” It was all he had to say. Misha nodded and held the business end of the brand in the flames from the grouped candles on the night stand.

“I'll be quick,” he said, but Jensen shook his head. 

“I want it to last,” he said. He meant the scar, but as he reviewed the words in his head as they came out of his mouth, he realized he also meant the experience: giving himself over to Misha, sharing this with him. Trusting him. 

Misha would be responsible for scars on them both. A thing to share: their secret. The spot was high enough that Jensen wouldn't have to show anyone, except, inevitably, Dani, and yeah, there was guilt there, but she had pieces of him he couldn't give Misha, either.... He found himself lost in a dry thicket of guilty thoughts and purposely turned his back on all of it. Too complex. This, now.

“Get ready,” Misha said. He meant get sterile, and while Jensen didn't see the point—wouldn't the brand cauterize every hapless germ?--he still grabbed the swabs and rubbed the inside of his thigh. The sharp scent of antiseptic warred with warm candlewax.

And Misha turned with the glowing brand in his hand, hot red already cooling to dull iron. Adrenaline juttered Jensen's vision, strobing everything. Misha almost looked pitying as he pressed Jensen back on the mattress and slid down his side to kneel between his legs.

Jensen's cock left cobwebs of sticky precum against his stomach. Misha half-smiled when he saw it, but it was one of his complicated smiles, not a happy one. 

“I think you're more into this than you think you are,” he said. 

Jensen hitched himself up on his elbows. “That worry you?”

Misha's eyes flashed up to meet his, and printed inside their dark circles were all the nights he made Jensen make him cry. _There are parts of me I don't want you understand,_ is what those eyes said. 

Jensen always avoided responding to the unspoken messages he received. He used to, as a very young child, and it'd freaked his mother out so badly that he'd taught himself to stop. For years, he'd just pleased everyone so the messages remained calm and serene, but things were different now. Being able to read Jared had saved his brother's life. Being able to read Misha had opened a world where the dark thoughts weren't necessarily things to be feared. They were storms: they could be frightening, but if you knew you were safe inside yourself, they could also be beautiful. 

Still, there was one more reason he kept his mouth shut when he heard something he wasn't supposed to, and it was because men didn't say deep emotional mushy stuff just out of friggin' nowhere. 

The brand was cooling in Misha's hand. He didn't have time to mull it over.

He said, “Mish, every bit of you is safe with me.”

Mish dipped his head, his breath whistling out. “You say that.” 

Jensen watched him. If Mish didn't believe him, he couldn't force him; but he knew in his heart that he should not wear that brand if Mish didn't. So he waited. And in the pit of his stomach was that top-of-the-rollercoaster feeling, because if this moment turned wrong, the whole thing would turn wrong, and it wasn't in his control.

He hated that.

“Don't you want that?” he asked, hating the weakness in his voice.

Misha twisted away, put the brand down on the night table with a clatter, the hot end hanging off the edge. Then he simply hung there on all fours, his head still determinedly turned away from Jensen's eyes. He trembled. 

Jensen still waited. 

“You—” Misha sucked in a deep breath. In front of the minions, he acted like King Total Disclosure, but get him alone and it was all this: shaking and difficulty. “I don't know how to say it. Bear with me. Best way I can put it is... you're better than this.”

“Better than understanding you?” Jensen hiked himself up on his elbows. He kept his legs splayed so the sterile area on his thigh touched nothing; the air, even warmed by the flames of a hundred candles, was cool on the astringent.

Misha froze, and there was Jensen's answer.

“You think I'm somehow better than you.” That sentence needed a question mark, but Jensen was simply too astonished. Hard on the heels of that: a deep need to punch Misha in his face. He tamped it down. 

“Misha. I am not better than you. Or, put it a different way: you aren't any worse than I am. Or, numbnuts, maybe try to get it through your head, that the fact you've hurt and bled doesn't, like, make a value judgment on you. Maybe the fact I haven't hurt and haven't bled says something about me—maybe it's a bad thing. Maybe it's something I want to fix, okay?”

Misha, still between his thighs, but listening. Jensen can tell.

“For the millionth time, I want this mark,” he said. “So let's fucking heat the brand and do this thing.” 

Misha nodded. On one of the dips of his head he kissed Jensen's kneecap, lapped it with his wet tongue like a hot washcloth. “All right,” he said. “All right.”

And he held the brand in the flame again.


	15. Flashover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently figured out exactly how I've been doing Jared wrong, and this fundamentally changes several sections in this work. In order to complete the rough draft, I'm forcing myself to press on without editing, even though “Mugged” and “Slipping” are particularly busted. Please forgive the inevitable timeline and character inconsistencies as I continue my updates! I'll be doing rolling edits once the rough draft is complete, and I'll announce on the main summary when I *think* I've achieved coherence. At which time, if I've still got Jarpad bent over the Designated Villain barrel (I'm owning it), have at me.

I. FEBRUARY 2, 2015: DURING FILMING FOR 10.17, “INSIDE MAN.”  
They went for a late lunch during one of Jensen's breaks, Misha not due on set til tomorrow to film with Jared, and as they drove back, Jensen said out of nowhere, “Be careful with him.”

Misha signalled a turn and squinted against the sun for a break in traffic. “I'd have to work overtime to put a dent in Clif.”

Jensen ignored this weak attempt at a joke. “He's getting worse.” He stared sightlessly ahead as he picked a thread on the ravelled knee of his jeans. 

Jared had been getting worse for over a year: the increments of his downward spiral might as well be charted on the writing room wall. “Worse than what?” Misha asked.

Jensen braced himself against the glove compartment as Misha took a chance and gunned it through a gap. “The last ep? 'Paint It Black?' Put a bug up his ass. Just—do me a favor? Look after him.”

“Best I can,” he agreed, distracted by a cyclist wobbling along without a helmet. 

-

Misha hadn't been on set in a month, so his first glimpse of Jared was a shock. 

He'd lost weight he could ill afford to lose and shambled around like his body was clothing bought two sizes too large. His undereye circles were concealed by his tan and some skillful makeup. He spoke little, didn't fuck with Misha's coverage, rarely smiled. 

Misha could see why Jensen worried.

He'd wanted to go off-site for lunch, but Jared shook his head, so they hit up the canteen. Jared got a burger and fries while Misha waited for a chopped salad. Jared didn't even glance at the bunny food as they carried their trays to a table, which set alarms ringing in Misha's head.

As they slid into their seats, Misha asked, “Okay, what is it?” 

“What's what?” Jared's hazel eyes flashed up to his as he sucked iced coffee through a straw. 

“Your deal.” Misha stirred his salad with his fork without breaking the stare. “Forgive me my bluntness, but just what am I working with right now?”

Jared's eyes skittered away as his eyebrows slammed down in a glare. Misha waited. 

“Last episode,” Jared said. 

“Yeah, Jensen was telling me.” 

“No, he wasn't, because it was all good with him.”

Misha hadn't read the script, and the episode hadn't aired. He had no idea what Jared was on about. He stuck a forkful of greens in his mouth and rolled his hand in the air, silently asking for elaboration. 

“I thought we all agreed to stop fucking the fans!” Suddenly, Jared overflowed with his usual energy, as primal and attention-snatching as a lightning strike. He struck the table; Misha snatched up his tea to keep it from slopping over on his salad.

“We did,” he said.

“But this thing? 'I wanna experience people in new ways, for the first time?' What the fuck?”

Without context, Misha knew better than to comment. “Your line or Jensen's?”

Jared sawed his burger into Lego-sized bricks with the side of his fork. “Fucking buttermilk Jensen! Misha, that line? Played totally bi-curious. Listen to this: he's in a fucking confessional, talking to a priest, about what he wants to experience for the first time, in an episode whose B line is a love story!” He chopped the air in time to his words. “It was more of that shit we all said we'd stop doing, and he simply didn't care.” He blew out, shook his head, scraped the bun of his burger off the meat and piled it on the side of his plate.

“He didn't see the harm,” Misha said. 

“How can he not?” Jared flared. “I just don't understand! This whole last year, we've been getting our noses rubbed in how bad we fucked up. I'm staring at him, Misha, slapping the set to ruin the take, doing everything I can to get him to not say it, like, either Dean comes out or Dean doesn't, 'cause he's straight, but we gotta stop gaslighting these people!”

“I agree that gaslighting is wrong,” Misha said, chewing slowly. Jared was jagged, flailing energy everywhere. Misha wished Vicki were here; with her psychology background, she had a professional interest in Jared and, often, great tips on dealing with him. But nope: right now, he was on his own. 

He laid down his fork, and the beet juice on the tines stained his napkin pink. “Sorry to say this, but you feel this way, and you still flirt with Jensen at cons. How's that not just as bad?”

Jared's eyelashes flinched as though a fly had just whisked past his face. “Sometimes,” he said, “it is. But then I'm thinking, hell, that's just fantasy. Those women don't want anything other than to fake-believe I'm fucking Jensen or whatever, and I got no problem with that. The problem is when people think we're promising a bisexual relationship on their screens, beamed across America as a sign they have arrived, and feeding that false hope is flat-out fucking cruel!” 

Jared had turned his burger into a color wheel: tan bread in one wedge; brown meat in another; tomato, lettuce, cheese, all organized and separate. A production assistant brought him another iced coffee, because his was empty. He flashed a hollow smile as he accepted it. 

Turning back to Misha, he said, “Jay doesn't want all that. That's not what Eric intended. So he shot all it down in Rome, and that sucked; you were there, you saw. And now this?”

“It hurt him, shooting it down.” Misha printed pink hashmarks on his napkin with the beet-juice-stained tines of his fork, remembering Jen onstage, facing fans who frowned or cried or glowed in triumph, all because Jen had tried to tell Dean's truth as he understood it. It wasn't his fault the division between himself and his character had gotten blurred somewhere along the way. “He's got a long road, accepting himself. He's not there yet. He's trying things, you know? Not playing Captain Censorship.”

It was a calculated appeal, but it didn't work. Jared threw himself back in his seat, jerking it across the concrete floor with a harsh scraping sound. He sucked coffee. “Y'all were irresponsible, and that's on you. It's on him to deal with the consequences, which means, when the writers do some shit like 'Oh, haha, you wanna think Dean is bisexual and fucking the angel, go ahead; we'll never confirm it,' it's on him to make them stop!”

Misha shrugged. “Unless he sees it himself.” 

Jared deflated. He sipped his iced coffee, slumped in a near-reclining position in his chair. “Yeah,” he said. “But say he does. How much of it is honest, and how much of it is because we've either manipulated or been manipulated into that position? How much of it is story, and how much of it is politics?”

Misha recognized Jared's game, constructing thickets of arguments that bristled with points like thorns. Beneath the thicket was what actually troubled him. Jensen could play dumb to cut through the mess, but Jared always expected a real answer from Misha, and twigged fast when Misha tried to dodge. 

Fortunately, the nature of the question itself provided the escape Misha needed. “Ask him,” he said. “Look, Jared, Jen's gonna keep making choices on this Show. He's got his reasons. They're his, and sitting here, speculating about them, isn't doing you any good. What you *can* do is address what you own in this situation. That's what I'm curious about. That's what I wanna know.” 

He leaned over the table. Jared eyed him, striving for nonchalant cool, but the mask cracked and under it was a man who hadn't slept well in weeks. 

“We talk like this,” Misha said, slowly, gently. “We use big words and we discuss the whichness of whatness, but we don't get down to it, because you don't like it, do you? You're thinking about getting mad at me. You're looking for the energy, but it's not there. And now you're starting to feel scared. You're thinking about getting up and walking away—don't do it. Because you're my brother too, Jared, and I'm worried about you. I want you to talk to me. Please.”

“You worry about me?” Jared's face contorted. He blinked up at the ceiling, his long neck working as he audibly swallowed. “Why not the fans, Misha? You give any thought to them? What they go through?”

“They go through,” Misha said, still pitching his voice gentle. “That's the point. They put one foot in front of the other.”

“Move those feet,” Jared muttered. It's what Jensen always said to him. “But it's not all laughter and fun when we're hurting them!”

Misha tried. Damn it, though, this wasn't his talent in life; Vicki was the one who was good at this. “You feel that way? Like you're hurting them?”

“You said it yourself—playing around at cons. And you, and Jay, you know—you have to know—like... isn't it painful? Doesn't it hurt? That there's no way you could expect anyone to understand? That what you've got with him, in real life, on the screen, gets seen as kind of a mistake? As this unspoken, unspeakable thing? Like a shame?”

Misha took his time answering. Deflection or not, it was still a good question, and he wanted Jared to know his answer to it. 

“I won't speak for Jen,” he said, “but I've never been ashamed of him, what I have with him. I care what my fans think, and I don't want them hurt, but the price of honesty is, to be frank, just too damned high. I have no intention of ever coming out to them, and neither does he. Whether Dean and Cas get off their asses or not, they don't represent us. I'm just sorry there's this—mental mimeograph, this repeating idea, that Dean and Cas somehow represent every gay and queer relationship on Earth. They don't even represent me and Jen, and that's got to be as close as it gets.”

“So why do you back it, then?” Jared asked. He set all four legs of his chair on the floor, then stood and swung it around so he could drape himself over the back. A good sign. His hazel eyes were cooler and clearer now, interested, looking into Misha's. 

Misha shrugged. “From my perspective, from a story standpoint, it makes sense to me,” he said. “The angel rebelling, falling for the hunter—I mean, I'm not even romantic, and that makes me mist up a little. It'd be fun to see it on screen, but it's not the hope of a generation or anything. It doesn't carry that much weight.”

Jared nodded, looking down and away. He rocked the chair on two legs. The production assistant swapped Misha's tea for a fresh mug, cleared their plates of mangled food. She was after something. Probably had a pitch tucked away in her mailbag purse.

“I'm glad to hear you say that,” he said. “I mean, that it's not a crusade for you. The weight of everything, I mean, I love Sam, I love the Show, but the only deep message I can get behind is the family angle. I don't get where everything else leaked in. And I can't understand why we're being held responsible for it.” He scrubbed his face, rumpled his hair, ending up like an unmade bed.

“Responsible,” Misha said. “Like... guilty?”

“Guilty,” Jared agreed, and his eyes blanked over, the energy bled from his face, as that word inhabited him. “Yeah, guilty. I feel guilty, Misha. Been feeling guilty for months.”

“Can you tell me anything about that?” he asked. He reached for his fork to eat some more salad, but it was gone, and so was the salad. He sipped his tea instead, feeling too Sigmund Freud for words. 

Jared shook his head. “I keep looking for reasons. Like, I don't spend enough time with my wife and kids. Guilty. Or I go overboard at a con, back my ass into Jay or something, and the women in the front scream their heads off and spend thousands more they don't have on front-row seats to the next con, hoping to see the same thing: guilty. Or an incest survivor cries all over me about how she ran across some Wincest fanfic, and it helped her!” Jared spread his hands out. “What am I supposed to do with that, Misha? How can I help? My wires aren't any better insulated than hers!”

“That's how,” Misha said. He dragged his tea bag through the hot water, watched the orange tannin bloom in oily crescents. “The fans at a con just wanna see their feelings playing on our faces. They want some evidence we feel what they feel, like they have that in common with us, at least.”

“But the feelings are so awful,” Jared whispered. “I don't want anybody to feel like this.”

“Of course not.” Misha glared at him. “That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, that girl, crying on you: you can't save her. You can't go back in her past. You can't undo it. What you can do, is give her some reassurance she's not alone.”

“Sounds great, Misha.” Jared let the chair fall back onto all fours. “Lemme take an hour with every crying fan. Soon they'll all be crying. We'll drown.” 

Misha tamped down a flash of temper at Jared's obtuseness. It wasn't on purpose. Defense mechanism, Vicki would say. Just meant he hadn't gotten down to the bone with him, and the crooked grain of stubbornness in Misha wouldn't allow him to drop this til he did. 

“If that's what it takes,” he said. “Time spent talking.”

Then, something extraordinary happened. Jared packed himself up like a suitcase, enormous feet in the seat of the chair, hands over his face, elbows tucked between his knees. Misha blinked. He wouldn't have thought someone six foot five could origami himself into one of the little metal canteen chairs, but here was proof right before his eyes. Jared's shoulders shook, and Misha refocused. Something he'd said had hit.

He played a hunch, leaned in. “Who didn't you spend time talking to, Jared?”

“Matt.” Jared dragged air into lungs squeezed like fists. “Matt. Day before New Year's, he called me. I let it go to voicemail. I was—fuck, I don't remember. It was more important than his life, and I don't even remember!”

He'd committed suicide. Misha knew without Jared saying it. He'd been in this chair before, watching Vicki sob, watching Angel sob. Suicide, that god damn decision, that middle finger to every survivor, that mocking laughter from beyond: I'm out, and you're still in, and you might hurt, but I won't know it—as oblivious as you were as I made my preparations, measured my rope, counted my pills. 

And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, he could say.

He reached across and grabbed Jared's forearm, felt the hard muscles snake with his shaking, and he suddenly understood how Jensen felt about the man. He was so large in so many ways, but pain mazed him, made him lost. He had no map out of this thicket. He'd stay there forever without help.

In that moment, Misha loved Jared for the very first time. 

He surged across the table and wrapped himself around him as best he could, the cold edge of Jared's chair digging into his tummy, his shoulders straining the seams of his shirt. He felt Jared claw up his ribs to grip his shoulder blades, and then Jared wetted the front of his shirt with tears. 

Misha let him cry. It was all he could do.

-

They shot their scenes. It was like tiptoeing across a frozen lake, slow, pausing when the ice creaked. Every once in awhile, Jared shot him sidelong glances, and Misha grabbed his elbow, slapped his shoulder, when he caught one. Reassure me, those looks meant; make me feel real, ground me: I'm going out of the blue and into the black again. 

When the shoot wrapped for the day, Jared tagged along behind him as he walked to his car, ambling from side to side like a golden retriever. Now, this would ordinarily make Misha nuts, but he tolerated it. He'd seen Jared do the same to Jen a thousand times. 

He opened his car door and then rested his arm on the top, turned to Jared, left his face open. 

“Got something,” Jared said without preamble. 

“I know,” Misha said. 

“You said the fans want to see their emotions playing on our faces, and you're right.” Jared balled his hands in his pockets, folded his big shoulders in on himself. He looked like an umbrella stuffed in a stand. “I—you know I'm not all right.”

Misha nodded. “I'll help as much as I can, but there are professionals who'll do better.”

Jared's eyes flashed up to meet his. “Yeah, I can't stand 'em.”

“They're not all alike.” Misha shrugged. “Treat it like interviewing for an assistant. Weed out the dicks. You'll find someone you can talk to. And meds. They aren't just for voices anymore.”

“You ever—?” Jared let the sentence hang. He didn't know any of Misha's history. One thing about Jen, a secret's a secret with him. 

But even with all the cutting, and the drugs, and the sex, no: Misha never lost track of reality, where the world ended and he began. He didn't know if his iron-clad ego was a blessing or a curse, though he'd spoken to swamis who ended their brief conversations with compassionate smiles. 

“It doesn't mean anything,” he said. “You get injured, you go to a doctor. You can heal without one, but not fast, maybe not right. It's just a different kind of injury we're talking about here. All I'm doing is advocating efficiency.”

“I hear that.” Jared jittered from foot to foot, still staring down at the pavement. “What I want to talk to you about.... You do that thing with your fans, your charity, that scavenger hunt, and it all seems like fun. It's you saying to them, 'It's good to be weird. Fuck normal.' I want to do something like that.”

Misha felt his eyebrows rise. “You want to start a scavenger hunt?”

Jared shook his head so his hair fell in his face. “No. I want to say something to them, too. I want to tell them that it's okay to be broken. Like, here's the world, like an airport, right? Some people get on the people mover and they go fast, they got it easy. And right beside them, there's people crawling along on fucking broken glass. They're all gonna get where they're going, but the broken glass people? Maybe they're better for it. Stronger, I mean. Or maybe not, whatever. They get there, as long as they keep moving forward.”

Misha nodded. Something inside him was warm towards Jared, melted like a caramel. “I think that's a great idea. I'll help you put it together, if you want. You think about it.”

Jared slapped the hood of his car. “I will,” he said. “Talk tomorrow.”

“Any time,” Misha said. 

He pulled himself behind the wheel. He meant it.


	16. Something Coming

I. MARCH 28, 2005: AFTER WRAP ON THE PILOT  
For weeks now, Jensen had struggled beneath a feeling of “something coming,” as smothering as a fleece blanket thrown over his head. 

Tying his boots, his fingers fumbled to stillness: something coming. He shoved it aside and tied the knot.

Forking eggs into his mouth, followed by a link of sausage: something coming. After a pause, he swallowed the meat.

A group of gawky teenage girls stopped in the middle of the sidewalk outside the breakfast diner, their mouths agape. He scrubbed his mouth, wondering if he had egg on his chin, and then, startled, realized they'd recognized him from something, 'Dark Angel' maybe. He ducked his head, put his sunglasses on despite the drizzle. Then he shyly glanced at them as he unlocked his car, grinned and waved, and they fell all over each other, squealing.

Something-coming-something-coming. If a sense of anticipation could be oppressive, this one was.

He'd shot pilots before—they hardly ever got picked up; it was just a paycheck—but there was sinew in this one that'd been lacking in others. Maybe the “something coming” was this show: steady work on a laidback set, a showrunner—Eric Kripke—who was intense and focused without climbing up his own hole about it.

With his costar: Jared Padalecki. That could be trouble. He didn't spend much time around guys who made him cotton-mouthed with desire; he could too easily wind up back in the gossip columns. He went through all that with Austin, and he wasn't even a big deal back in his soap opera days. There were conversations with his father he never, ever wanted to have again.

Eric Kripke watched him shoot with Jared, pacing the sidelines, intent.

The pilot wrapped, but Eric wanted to talk to them both. Like, on the clock, with pay. Serious business. 

Jared was already seated in Eric's trailer, snapping like a gator at Gummi Bears he tossed in the air. He had one impossible limb folded over the other to save space, but his knees still banged his sternum. Missed bears bounced off his lean thighs. 

He beamed at Jensen and knocked a chair towards him with his bent knee. The cheap aluminum scratched across the linoleum floor. 

Acting: a glamorous occupation, but only when the cameras rolled. Everything else took place in tiny little trailers like this one. 

“Siddown, dude,” Jared said. “Boss went to grab some joe to soothe the pain of waiting on your pretty ass. He'll be back.”

“He better bring a second cup,” Jensen said, shrugging off tingles caused by Jared's smile, “pretty ass.” He dropped into the chair and damn near slid off the end. The slick aluminum seat must've been molded for a munchkin. He braced his feet against the legs of Eric's desk and pushed himself upright into a more professional posture. 

The door slammed open behind them. Jensen jerked. Jared spilled his Gummi Bears. 

“Got something to pitch to you boys.” Eric—balding, energetic—strode in and set three cups of coffee on the desk. Jared snatched the one closest to him and hissed when it burned his palm; Jensen raised his eyebrows at him and gripped his cup around the lid, grinning.

Eric threw his head back when he swigged from his cup, briefly interrupting the words that rattled out of him like bullets from a machine gun.

“Okay, boys, I think odds are good we're gonna get picked up, and I figured I oughtta have this talk with you sooner rather than later. Wanted to talk about my expectations for you two, for the Show.” Swig. “The Show's about family, about bonds, about the reasons people stick around when the going gets tough. This world's so much about leaving now; someone doesn't dance to your tune, you cut 'em loose, and your friends applaud, and it's fucking sad.” Swig. “So, yeah, I'm about monsters and guns, cool cars, cool music, but I'm also about hanging in there. I need your word you'll hang in there with me.”

He shot behind his desk as though boarding a bus about to leave without him. “Not saying you can't do movies, guest spots, but don't go all Duchovny on my ass. He didn't make it, and he killed the X-Files trying. We get picked up, I expect you to put this Show, and your friendship, first.”

He held up a finger to signal a pause, then shotgunned the remainder of his coffee. Jensen felt his eyes bug out. He'd barely sipped his, waiting for it to cool to some temperature less reminiscent of magma. Dude must have an asbestos-lined esophagus.

Eric wiped his mouth, leaned over his desk. “Bob Singer bounced this off me, about 'Lois and Clark'—don't suppose you ever caught that show? He produced it? 90's? Doesn't matter. Anyway, the leads? Great chemistry. People loved to watch them. Had the whole online fandom thing going for 'em. But then the rumors started: they hated each other, fought about money, fought about screen time. Viewers saw the man behind the curtain, and the little guy was constipated. Killed Bob's show. So this is what I propose—and stop me if this sounds invasive or creepy, because I don't mean it to be—but what I wanna do, what's a little different, is have a kinda show outside the Show.”

Jensen leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and sipped his coffee. Jared's forehead crumpled with concentration, and possibly a mild hangover. 

“Remember how we screen tested the hell out of you boys? Jensen, you were insulted! Like, 'Who the fuck is this guy? I've been working for years, I know what I'm doing.' And you, Jared, got the job done on Gilmore Girls, and here I was: hoop, hoop, hoop. You were getting paid, so you jumped. But what you didn't know was, the footage? Fuck it, I couldn't've cared less about it. I was watching what you boys did when the camera stopped rolling. And jackpot! Y'all are the brothers we need for this Show.

“So do it up!” Eric leaned back in his chair, gesturing expansively. “Hang out, spend time together, have fun, get your picture taken. Talk each other up in interviews, but don't you ever let me catch you bitching. You wanna cry on somebody's shoulder, you come in here and cry on me, and I promise I'll fix it for you. Keep the trouble in the family, is what I'm saying. Jensen's nodding, he hears me. Jared? Aw, hell, I keep you in Gummi Bears, you'll do whatever I say.”

Jared laughed as he ripped the head off the latest unlucky Gummi. 

“Stay positive and have fun. We're gonna do gag reels, behind the scenes documentaries, but not slick ones. I want like a home video vibe, back in the days of the Super 8s. I want the viewers to feel like they really see you. When that camera's rollin', you treat it like it's family, and I promise you, the viewers will feel it. They'll want the Show to do well, so you can do well. Loyalty, that's what I'm after. Love! If you love each other, if you're loyal to each other, to the Show, to the viewers, we'll be picked up, season after season. Believe it.”

Eric took Jared's untouched cup of coffee out of his hands and shotgunned that too. “Okay, that was a lot of me talking just now. Any questions?”

“Yessir, I got one.” Jensen's elbows dug into his thighs as he leaned forward, rolling the cooling cup of coffee between his palms. “You know how it's gonna play, me and Jared in candids, right? I mean, I've been there before and I don't mind. But I think Jared oughta be warned about the implications of what you're talking about, here.”

“Warned about what?” Jared asked.

Jensen shot him a sidelong look. “Dude, you can't be that innocent.”

But he was. His hazel eyes were wide. He was all but whistling boyishly. 

Jensen cleared his throat. “There's, uh... I got this fanbase. They call themselves the Ackles Army.... Oh, shut your face, man, I didn't nickname the mothers.”

“That's not even the worst of it,” Eric said, grinning.

“You can shut your face too,” Jensen said, pointing at him. “Anyway, the minute these gals get ahold of a picture of you and me smiling at each other, they're gonna be setting fire to the Internet talking about us boning. Just spittin' facts, here.”

“Oh... kay,” Jared said. “That explains... a lot.”

Jensen didn't ask him what he meant. He thought he knew, and he was content to let it slide. One of these days, he was gonna have to talk to Jared about his sexuality, but it could wait. Forever, so far as he was concerned. “Didn't want it to come as a big surprise or nothin',” he said. “Shouldn't cause you any real trouble, getting work, I mean. Most folks know how it goes nowadays.”

Jared put on a simpering expression and slid his hand up Jensen's thigh until Jensen giggled and squirmed. He snapped to a glare as the side of Jared's hand got dangerously close to his groin and threw his arm off him, snarling, “Dude!” 

Eric sighed. “Jared, you had something?”

“Um, yeah,” Jared said, growing serious himself. “Seems to me,” he said, “that what you're talking about... feels a little... insincere.”

“Okay, I'm hearing this,” Eric said. “What's insincere about it?” 

“Well, I'm not saying I don't have a good time with Jensen,” Jared said slowly. “Maybe it's because we're both middle children, but it just works between us, and that's... all good, but making a display of it, the way you're talking about? If it ever came out, it'd shatter the trust. We'd look like assholes, and rightfully so.”

“I think it's smart,” Jensen said. He didn't like it, but for his own reasons. For his own peace of mind, it'd be best to avoid spending too much time with Jared. Didn't change the fact that Eric's argument was sound, and his personal comfort was of lesser importance. He could handle it. 

“You kept saying viewers, but you meant fans, right?” He glanced at Eric, got his nod of agreement, and then turned back to Jared. “Fans identify—deeply. It's almost like they own a little piece of you. So you lose'm when things get negative backstage, because if you hurt, they hurt, and nobody's after pain. Eric's saying, instead of bein' scared of that level of identification, use it! You and me, buddy; he's not asking us to act.”

“Of course not,” Jared said. He shifted in his seat, avoided Jensen's eyes, stared over Eric's shoulder out the tiny window at the drumming rain. “It's the awareness of it, I guess, that's making me nervous. I mean, it'd be so easy for someone to say we're being manipulative. I've never manipulated anybody before.”

“It is manipulation,” Eric said frankly. “We hold the fandom in our hands and we show them what we want them to see. The Show's no different. Show business? No different. We try to make something people can enjoy. Maybe they fall in love with it, maybe it helps them lead a better life, maybe it keeps them from sucking down the whole six-pack. Whatever it is, it's a positive force. And what I'm suggesting is, you and Jensen, you let yourselves be that positive force outside the Show, too. Show 'em friendship. Show 'em brotherhood. So long as it brings them a little bit of happiness, a little entertainment, I mean, that's the life. That's what we do.”

“He's just talking about publicity, dude,” Jensen said. “Not some kind of double life. We're not Tom Cruise and John Travolta here. Maybe we didn't have to think about it before, but I can guarantee you, this conversation? Everyone has it eventually. We need to hear this now. Otherwise we'll wind up with our drunken faces plastered all over the Internet.”

Jared wadded up the empty bag of Gummi Bears and pitched it into the garbage. Jensen picked up the ones that had fallen closest to his chair and shook them in his palm with his eyebrows raised expectantly, until Jared added the ones he hadn't been able to reach. 

As they cleaned up the fallen bears, Eric said, “Good point. Regardless of whether we talked this out or not, the fans are gonna track you, online, offline; whatever they wanna know, they're gonna find out, unless we take steps in advance. Instead of throwing you to them like raw meat, I thought it'd be better to lay it all out. Prepare you. Fact is, as soon as we start shooting, the Show's never gonna stop. It's happening whether the cameras roll or not.”

“So what happens when the fans start getting the wrong idea?” Jared asked.

Jensen blinked.

“This show outside the Show, if we're taking pains to display nothing but love and brotherhood, it's gonna be misinterpreted. Like you were saying, Jay, it's not gonna look like brotherhood to some people. So when the moment comes, how do you want us to handle that, Eric?”

Eric blinked, too. He met Jensen's eyes, both of them floored. Jared played himself as a big, rambunctious puppy, and it was easy to buy it until he popped off with some insight like this. Then you got reminded of his intellect like a fist to the face. 

“The people who are most likely to buy into that interpretation are also the most loyal consumers of media anywhere,” Eric said carefully.

Jensen nodded. “I didn't want to throw it out there like that, but Eric's not wrong. There's gonna be that moment someone says something totally gross and inappropriate, and all you can do is smile. That's one of those moments where you're not quite a person anymore. You're like, two-thirds a figment of their imagination. It's weird, but you'll get through it. I'll help.”

Jared frowned. “But letting them think that? It's not honest.”

Jensen snorted. “Yeah? Neither's kissing an actress who needs to brush her teeth.”

Jared thought about that for a moment and then grinned. “Does everybody have to deal with this?”

“Boys who look like you two do,” Eric said firmly, and that seemed to be the final word on the matter. “So, what's your answer? All told, you think you can do it? Can you handle it?”

He met their eyes, each in turn, and at last, Jared nodded. He shook himself all over and smiled at Jensen, a little anxious until Jensen returned the smile. Eric exhaled, leaned back in his chair and tossed the empty coffee cups in the general direction of the garbage can. One went in. The other didn't. It inscribed semi-circles of dribbled coffee until Jensen grimaced, grabbed it, and threw it away.

“I tore my hair out looking for you boys,” Eric said quietly. “You're a one in a million find, a true God-given bolt of luck, but everything I've been talking about? Needs your buy-in. The minute you want off this ride, it all stops.

“This thing begins and ends with you.”

Those seven words sunk deep into Jensen and played off the continuing train-track chug of something-coming-something-coming, like the echo of a promise made before he was born. 

It was just a pilot. He never expected it to get picked up, but if it did, he'd give it everything he had.


End file.
